Highschool Hazards
by 1Styx and Stones1
Summary: Yes, it's another one of those stories about what the team might have been like in high school. Deal with it. So, yeah. Warning - involves geeks, Goths, cute Italian guys, gym class - yuck , ninjas, and creepy kitten statues. Tiva, McAbby, and maybe Jibbs
1. Chapter 1

**I know, I know, I know...I should be focusing on my other stories...but I couldn't resist! Cliched plotlines, anyone? Yes, please. So I know that the ages and stuff are nothing like this on the show...but this is AU, so deal with it. It's more of a study of what our favorite characters might have been like as teenagers or young adults. Plus it's just fun. **

**Disclaimer: I don't even own a high school. **

Principal Vance was not in a particularly good mood. He had spent a ridiculous length of time waiting in line for his coffee, only to find that the barista, a teenage girl who he faintly remembered from her frequent visits to his office before she had dropped out, had gotten his order wrong.

Things had not improved since then. He'd arrived at the office and discovered that there was a stain of unknown origins on his favorite shirt. Then his secretary had called to inform him, with a dubious coughing fit, that she had chosen today, of all days, to fall ill.

So Vance was forced to implement the old coffee maker, change into his spare shirt, which happened to clash atrociously with his tie, and call in a substitute secretary...and it was only the first day of the school.  
>All in all, the school year was not looking particularly promising.<p>

...

Jenny Shepard was forcibly jolted out of a deep sleep by a particularly irritating roommate, who seemed determined to shake her until sufficient brain damage had been obtained.

"Jen! Phone for you!"

"Go 'way," Jenny moaned with admirable coherency, considering the sleepy state of her mind.

"But Jenny, the phone-"

Jenny forced herself into a sitting position, nearly blacking out from the sudden transition from sleep into semi-consciousness. "Who is it?" She demanded crankily.  
>She received no answer, but was offered the handset, which was precariously held together with liberal amounts of duct tape. "H'llo?"<p>

"Miss Shepard?"

She suppressed a groan. No one called her 'Miss Shepard' but law enforcement and her boss, and as she was currently unemployed, it was hardly likely that the latter was calling.

"Yes. Who's calling?" She asked politely, sitting up a bit straighter in bed and running a hand through her wild mess of red curls.

"This is Principal Vance, of Quantico High School. You applied for a position here at the beginning of the summer, I seem to recall?"

Jenny bolted out of bed, pausing to look at her bedraggled appearance despairingly before flying for the bathroom. "Um, yes. How are you, Principal, sir?"

The bathroom door was locked, someone belting out Britney Spears' 'Toxic' lyrics at the top of their lungs within, the shower doing little too disguise the noise. Jenny cringed and hoped fervently that the principal could not hear the ruckus as she pounded on the door of the bathroom.

"I've been better," Vance admitted. "My secretary has chosen today, of all days, to call in sick, and I will no doubt have a clown's car worth of kids lining up in the office in half an hour, full of complaints."

Jenny abandoned formalities and barged into the bathroom, ignoring the squeal of protest from within the shower that accompanied her abrupt intrusion.

"Of course, sir," she said, cradling the phone between her cheek and shoulder as she rummaged through the massive quantities of hair accessories and old makeup for a hairbrush. "When would you need me by?"

"Yesterday," came the crisp and far from helpful reply.

Jenny abandoned her fruitless search for a comb and mouthed frantically at the shower's occupant, peeking indignantly around the edge of the shower curtain, to get out immediately.

As the annoyed girl did as she was told, at a pace that seemed teeth-grindingly slow to Jenny, Jenny hastened to assure her impatient employer, "That should be totally fine, sir. I will be over before you know it."

Jenny crossed her fingers, said goodbye, and headed full-tilt into meltdown zone.

...

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was in the process of tip-toeing past the main office when he was practically bowled over by a frazzled-looking red-head, who was running at a speed that he had not thought possible for a woman in high heels.

He had turned at the last moment, and thus had had time to brace for impact, but the woman was not as lucky. Her entire armful of papers, and an extra-large coffee, crashed to the ground.

The woman cursed, then blushed as she realized that she was not alone. "Oh my gosh," she scurried to scoop up the mess of now coffee-stained files. "I'm so sorry. It's just-"

"You spilled your coffee," Gibbs finished calmly, stooping to help collect the sodden papers. "If it had been my coffee, I'd've said worse."

The woman smiled tiredly and looked down at her armful of yellowed documents. "Well this was not exactly how I wanted to make my first impression."

"You're new?"

The woman shook her head, making her short red curls swing. "Substitute. But, you know, I thought maybe if I was totally on top of things, I'd be asked to stay on." She laughed ruefully. "Wishful thinking, I know."

Gibbs nodded sympathetically, but did not utter any false hopes. Instead, he offered the only tidbit of information he could think of that could possibly ease the situation. "There's a coffee maker in the teacher's room."

The woman laughed and shifted her bundle of damp papers until she could extend a hand."I'm Jenny Shepard, and I promise that I'm not usually such a mess. This was a last minute call, and I literally was in bed when I talked to Vance."

Gibbs took the hand and shook. "Call me Gibbs. I'm the gym teacher here."

"Well," Jenny said, glancing nervously into the office. "I should get going. I don't want to add tardiness to my list of faults. Thank you for all your help."

"No problem," Gibbs answered. "I should go, too, before Vance sees me. Don't want to start the day with an argument."

...

Anthony DiNozzo, as a rule, did not 'do' school. Oh, sure, he went, if only to get away from the house for a while, though at this point he was pretty sure the teachers would rather he just stayed home.

Today he had been tempted to just...not go. After all, his dad was away on business, something that happened quite regularly, to the point where it had entirely lost its novelty. Throwing wild parties while the folks were out, after all, was only fun when 'the folks' actually came home at some point.

Not that he wanted that whole enchilada. Things were so much easier when there was no one around to nag him about homework, when there was no one to frown at his baggy jeans or the rather disheveled state of his hair. But sometimes, late at night, usually after he'd freaked himself out by watching one horror film or another, he'd wish there was someone, anyone, there to tell him to turn that junk off and get to bed. It was on nights like that that he would leave all the lights burning, trying to lessen the overwhelming feeling of being _alone_.

Last night had been one of those nights. Tony had gotten himself a little freaked watching The Shining, and had woken up to a house that was bright in the rainy early-morning dim. He groaned a bit and weighed the pros and cons of going to school.

The cons were obvious - um, school in general kinda stank.

Pros - school would give him something to _do_, other than laying on the couch and watching horror flicks that scared him more than he was willing to admit.

With that decided, Tony got to his feet. A look at the alarm clock told him he'd slept late. He would have time to shower only if he skipped breakfast. But that was okay. After all, he didn't have anyone there to remind him that breakfast was the most important meal of the day.

After showering, he hurried out the door, shoving a granola bar in his pocket for the road.

One of the many good things about having a loaded dad who was never home was that finding a ride was not an issue. He had his pick of the Porsche, the Mustang, and the Thunderbird. Today, to cheer himself up, he took the Mustang. He'd always had a weakness for the classics.

As he roared down the road, cramming a granola bar into his mouth as he went, his mood lightened considerably.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

...

Abigail Sciuto was bouncing up and down at the bus stop in such a way that she was beginning to regret drinking coffee at breakfast. She'd gotten hooked on caffeine over the summer, and now she couldn't get through the day without it, even if it did leave her a bit...excitable.

But, then, Abby had always been hyper. She pitied the people who'd had to put up with her in nursery school. She certainly must have been a handful.

The weather was cool, as if the earth had finally looked at the calendar and realized that it was September. A brisk wind kept a constant flurry of dried leaves cascading from the trees like a fiery snowfall. Abby shuffled her booted feet, relishing the crunch issued by the fallen leaves underfoot.

She had a funny feeling in her stomach that she thought might not be entirely the large cup of coffee's fault. She was a bit nervous, to be entirely truthful.  
>She had undergone some changes over the summer, and she wasn't sure how people were going to react.<p>

It wasn't such a big deal, she reasoned, as she wouldn't know anybody anyway. That was what made public high school so great. It was, like, a clean slate. She could be anyone she wanted to be, and there would be no one there to tell her who she was. It was a second chance.

Abby's middle school had been private, the kind of snobby boarding school with the kind of queen bees you thought existed only in those silly 'realistic' fiction books about 'teen drama,' where the loser who hides in the background suddenly becomes cool, probably stealing the mean bee's boyfriend in the process.

There was another character in those silly books, the devoted follower of the queen bee, who walked around with her mouth open and her eyes closed. Abby still cringed when she thought about how she'd been back then, so desperate to be just like everyone else. It embarrassed her.

She'd had an eye-opener after a guest speaker, a scientist from the FBI, had come to talk to the eight grade science class about forensics. Abby had been intrigued by the way the man found patterns in the chaos, in a way that she had never been interested in anything school-related before. After that, things snowballed, ending in a sleepover fall-out to end all fall-outs. A social life down the drain, and Abby had totally not cared.

And it felt good.

And, even though she was nervous, Abby felt empowered, because not caring about what other people thought of you meant that those people couldn't get to you. And that pretty much meant that you won.

...

Timothy McGee took his sweet time getting to the bus stop, going out of his way to crunch each and every dead leaf underfoot and doing his very best not to think about school. If he thought about it, he'd get nervous, and if he got nervous he would stutter and sweat and flub up his words. Which would not be a good way to make first impressions.

The bus wouldn't be coming for another five minutes or so, and it wasn't like he was in any rush. Quite the opposite, in fact. He'd spent an entire month dreading the end of each day, because it meant he was one day closer to school starting again.

It wasn't that he didn't like school. The sad thing was, he kinda did. He liked the challenge of a particularly difficult assignment, the purposeful drive he got when he was that close to finding an answer. Yeah, he guessed he kinda even...liked school.

It was the other stuff he didn't like, the space between classes, the free time, because it was then that he realized that he just did not, and probably never would, fit in.

He wasn't on the football team, had never even _talked_ to a cheerleader, and hung out with fellow geeks at lunch. He was, in essence, a nobody. But even with the other nobodies, he felt like an outsider.

It wasn't really so bad. Tim had always been a bit of a loner, and high school wasn't like it was in movies. People under the social radar were really just that. They were ignored, not picked on…and the lockers were way too small to shove people into.

As he neared the bus stop, Tim was surprised to see another student waiting beneath the massive oak tree. He had been the only person at this stop last year, as a freshman, and he had just assumed the case would be the same this year. As far as he knew, there was no one else his age in the neighborhood.

The girl was dressed...well, oddly was putting it nicely. She was wearing a cropped leather jacket, a red plaid miniskirt that was scandalously skimpy, and fishnet tights under black platform boots. Tim blinked. You'd think that if someone in the neighborhood went around looking like _that_, he'd remember it, but he had no idea who the blonde pigtailed girl was.

She turned as Tim crunched up, fixing him with alert green eyes that were positively coated in eye makeup. "Hi! Are you a freshman, too? Is it just me and my caffeine, or is this totally exciting?"

Tim shifted awkwardly. "Um, no. I'm a sophomore."

The girl's hands flew to her red mouth. "Oops. I'm so sorry. It's not that you look young or anything, 'cause you obviously don't. I guess I just assumed that you would be new, since I was, which shows how self-centered I am, right?"

Whoa. Either this girl had drank massive amounts of something caffeinated, or she was a squirrel disguised as a Goth...although, Tim noted distractedly, she was pretty cute...for a squirrel, at least.

...

Ziva David was _not_ scared.

This was important, because fear made you weak, and she was definitely not weak; therefore, she could not be scared...though the knot in her stomach suggested otherwise.

It was just...this was like nothing she had ever done before. She could fire a gun, kill a man with her bare hands, no problem. But she was not a perfect blond model like all the girls in that stupid movie they'd played on the flight here had been. And while Ziva was fairly confident that she could take every one of those girls, she was not quite as confident in her ability to be _like_ one of those girls.

She was not concerned about this for the reasons that the stupid heroine in the movie had been concerned. She didn't feel a pressing need to wear skin-tight jeans and date a shaggy-haired guy on the football team. But hadn't it been drilled into her from a young age that in order to avoid conflict in an unfamiliar situation, you should do your best to blend in?

Ziva considered this for a long moment, until the bus went over a rut in the road, jarring its occupants and causing her to slam her forehead on the thick glass of the vehicle's window. The bump seemed to knock some sense into her.

She was done with everything _they_ had taught her. She had made her choices, and now it was up to her to decide who she was going to be. She could be an entirely different person, and no one would be any the wiser on her...shady origins.

Not that Ziva wanted to be one of those annoying blondes, with their whiny voices and fake laughs that reminded her, oddly, of one of those little yappy dogs that her great aunt used to keep in the house. Ziva had a scar on her ankle from a mishap when she was six, when she had accidentally trodden on a particularly vicious little thing.

No, she did not want that, nor was she sure she could ever force herself to _be_ like that. She had been raised a liar, but there was a difference between a person who _could_ lie and a person whose entire life was a lie. She was not sure she could be so false.

Besides… that shaggy haired Neanderthal had not been _quite _as attractive as that stupid heroine seemed to think.

**Shall I continue, dear readers? **


	2. Chapter 2

**Wow! Talk about awesome feedback! Thanks to everyone who reviewed. You motivate me to write faster and better. So this chapter focuses mainly on Tony and Ziva, but the next will most likely be about McGee and Abby. I will definitely be throwing some Jibbs in there as well. Let me know if you have any suggestions or opinions. Thanks!**

**Disclaimer: alas and alack and all things depressing  
><strong>

Jenny Shepard was sitting at the secretary's desk, eying dubiously the rather ugly statue of a kitten that the absent secretary had chosen as her office decor when the office door swung open and a pretty girl walked in.

"Good morning," Jenny said, with as much as courtesy as she could muster, considering that the morning so far had not been exactly 'good.'

The girl nodded once. "I was told to meet Principal Vance here," she said coolly, with a surprising amount of composure. Most teenage girls Jenny talked to spoke through awkward giggles and hair flips.

"Um, okay," Jenny said, mentally scrambling for what she was supposed to do, exactly. "Do you have . . . an appointment?"

The girl smirked. "I would assume so. He told me to come talk to him when I arrived."

The girl had a strange accent that Jenny could not place. It, along with the swarthy olive skin and dark curly hair, suggested the girl was a foreigner. She was dressed strangely, too, in olive green cargo pants and a black tank top, a sharp contrast to the tight jeans and pastel tops of the other high-schoolers that Jenny had seen so far.

"Um, okay. I'll just go get him." Jenny stood, knocking over a sheaf of papers in the process. She could have sworn she saw the girl smirk.

"Tell the principal that I am alone," the girl instructed, with the air of one used to giving orders. "There was no need for the police."

Slightly puzzled and very irritated by the mysterious dark-haired girl, Jenny hurried over to knock on the principal's door. When the man called for her to enter, she did so, closing the door gently behind her.

"Sir, there is a girl asking to speak to you. Apparently she was instructed to come here when she arrived." Jenny squinted, wondering if she should have asked the girl's name. "Oh, and she said something about being alone."

Principal Vance, who until then had been only half-listening while reading through a particularly nasty email from a Anthony DiNozzo, Sr., complaining that his son was not making the grades he wanted, sat straight up. "What?"

"I…didn't ask her name," Jenny faltered, feeling very stupid. "Should I go-"

"Send her in," Vance dictated, regaining his cool and exiting out of his email account. Maybe if Mr. DiNozzo was ever actually at home, he would know that his son was not passing because he was not _attending_.

Jenny got out of there as fast as she could, wondering why people thought unemployment was so awful. It was only 7:18 in the morning, after all. Usually she'd still be asleep.

The dark-haired girl was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and her eyelids lowered, as if she was bored. Jenny couldn't help but stare at the cords of muscle that were visible in the girl's tan arms.

Somehow feeling Jenny's eyes on her, the girl looked up. "You can go right in," Jenny told her, sitting back down at her desk.

"Thank you." The girl sauntered across the room and into the principal's office without so much as a knock on the door.

Jenny watched the closed door for a minute, then gave up trying to eavesdrop and looked back at the creepy kitten on her desk, wondering if it was too early to run for a coffee.

…

The door swung open, and a dark-haired teenager entered the room. Principal Vance, affronted at the total lack of ceremony, said dryly. "Please, come in."

The girl fixed him with a withering look that _dared_ him to be sarcastic in her presence. "You wished to see me before I went to my classes, yes? I am here, am I not?"

Vance noted amusedly that the girl, like her father, apparently had some sort of disdain for contractions. "Yes, Miss David, although I was under the impression that you wouldn't be totally unaccompanied."

Ziva shrugged, sitting down gracefully across the desk from him. "It was not necessary. I can take care of myself."

Eyeing a suspicious shape beneath the girl's tight top, Vance replied, "I don't doubt that, Miss David, but I'm sure your father would prefer-"

"My father's preferences are not my concern," the Israeli teen cut him off crisply, standing. "Now is there anything else, or may I go? I do not wish to be late for my first class."

Vance was irritated by the girl's blatant lack of respect for her authorities and he didn't intend to let it go, important father be darned. "A few things, Miss David. Firstly, this is not Israel. I understand it was your choice to leave, and so you must accept the consequences of your decision. You can't treat people like this here, and expect them to give you your way because of it."

Apparently his speech, while certainly adept in putting other high-schoolers back in line, did not much affect Ziva. She merely looked him up and down with a disdainful smile and said lazily, "And secondly?"

Feeling like the sixteen-year-old had somehow gotten the better of him, and not particularly liking it, Vance frowned. He had no choice but to continue. "Secondly, weapons are not allowed in this school. I'm afraid you'll have to turn over your knife."

Looking a bit put-out for the first time, Ziva frowned and twisted a dark curl around her finger. "Which one?"

Oh no. She had more than one?

"All of them," Principal Vance answered shortly, wondering what he'd taken on when he agreed to accept the daughter of Mossad Director Eli David.

Disgruntled, the girl removed the knife from her belt and handed it over sulkily. "And the others…" Vance prompted. The girl fixed him with a look so innocent it would have made a saint look devilish.

"That is my only one."

And before the principal could remind her that she had asked 'which one,' Ziva departed.

…

Apparently the red-headed secretary had gotten herself together during Ziva's brief encounter with the principal, because there were no longer papers scattered across the room. Ziva thought it might have something to do with the large cup of coffee that sat where an ugly ceramic kitten had previously reposed.

"Excuse me, hon." The woman stood and motioned Ziva over. Ziva, feeling slightly miffed at being called 'hon.' did as she was told.

"Yes?"

"You're new, right?" the woman asked, taking a large sip of the coffee. Ziva nodded and wished for a cup of her own. Though she was not particularly fond of the taste, she was certain a little bit of caffeine would be necessary in getting through the day. Perhaps the nurse would give her some if she pleaded jetlag?

"Okay," the red-head handed Ziva some brightly colored brochures advertising various sports teams and academic clubs. "Vance…I mean, _Principal _Vance asked me to find you someone to show you around for the first day."

"That will not be necessary," Ziva answered quickly. She had always been good with finding her way around, and she did not feel like dealing with an annoyingly perky student, no doubt full of questions about where she'd come from, for an entire day.

The woman looked taken aback. "Oh…well, alright. Then let me just print you out a schedule, and you can be on your way. Name?"

"Ziva David," Ziva said crisply, ignoring the uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs the secretary had gestured to and leaning against the wall to wait. The secretary turned on the computer and began typing, only to be interrupted by a good-looking boy with bright green eyes.

"Hi," he said to the secretary. "I think the principal wanted to yell at me or something?"

"Um," said the secretary, looking frantically through the papers on her desk, suggesting she hadn't consumed quite enough coffee to sufficiently calm her nerves. "What's your name?"

"DiNozzo."

"Um, okay. Hold on. I'll go see if Vance can see you." The secretary got to her feet and hurried off to the principal's office. She peeked in, then turned back to the boy. "He's on the phone."

The boy shrugged. "I'm in no hurry to get yelled at."

The secretary smirked. "Just wait until he's off. Then I'll tell him you're here." She turned back to Ziva apologetically. "I'm sorry. What did you say your name was?"

"Ziva David."

"Okay, Ziva, one sec-" The secretary was cut off by the green-eyed guy, who had turned to study Ziva with interest from where he was slouched in one of the brightly-colored plastic chairs.

"Your name's Xena?' He snorted.

"Zi-va," she repeated, enunciating clearly, as if speaking to a three-year-old.

He looked slightly disappointed. "Oh. What's that, African?"

Feeling slightly murderous, Ziva let out a long breath. "I am Israeli."

"I'm Italian," the boy countered, seeming to feel his own heritage was being undermined. Ziva wondered if all American people were this. . . . irritating.

Lest she be shown up by an American boy with messy hair and a lot of attitude, she replied. "You were born in Italy, then?"

He deflated slightly. "Well . . . no. But my grandparents were."

"I was born in Israel," she answered smugly, crossing her arms to effectively put an end to the debate.

He squinted at her. "Really?"

Ziva rolled her eyes. "No. I was lying. I am from Canada."

The green-eyed guy nodded wisely. "That explains it. So do you, like, eat hamburgers with maple syrup?"

"Miss David," the red-head spoke up. "Here's your schedule."

Ziva accepted the slip of paper gratefully, eager to escape from this strange boy. Unfortunately, he had different ideas, following her out of the office and into the hallway. "Do you guys say aboot instead of about? Or is that just urban legend?"

Ziva whirled, irritated. "Were you not waiting to speak to the principal?"

The guy waved this away airily. "Nah. He's just gonna tell me to get my head on straight or he'll expel me. He's been feeding me that story for three whole years, and I doubt he'll get rid of me now." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "I'm kinda fun to have around."

"Astonishing."

"Yeah. So what brings you to the states, Canadian?" he asked, following her down the hall as she sought out locker 156.

The hallways were beginning to fill with arriving students, chatting and slamming lockers and throwing things. Ziva eyed a posse of giggling girls as she passed them by, confused by the fact that they all seemed to be wearing the exact same outfits.

"I am not from Canada," she told him, starting towards her locker. Again, her newfound 'friend' followed.

"Yeah, I kinda figured, what with the whole Israeli accent…" he leaned against the locker next to hers and watched amusedly as she struggled to open the lock. "You know, it turns the other way."

"Stupid thing," she muttered, giving it a kick for good measure. The guy laughed, ignoring the ferocious scowl she shot at him.

"Didn't they have lockers back in Canada?"

"I was home-schooled," she answered shortly, finally yanking the cursed metal door open and beginning to shove her things inside.

"Ah. So why'd you move from Canada?"

Ziva rolled her eyes, and wondered if the American boy was kidding. His _face_ was perfectly straight.

"I am not from Canada," she repeated, easily evading the original question.

"So I've heard . . . Is that a knife?"

Ziva looked guiltily down at the weighted throwing knife in the bottom of her bag. So that was where it was. She'd been looking for it all last week. "No."

"I'm sure Homeland Security was real happy with that. Probably not everyday they meet a knife-toting fifteen-year old."

Ziva frowned, offended. "I am sixteen."

The boy frowned and looked her up and down. "You're kinda short for a-"

"Did you know I can use that knife?" Ziva asked conversationally, fixing the annoying guy with a pointed glare. He gulped, not looking sure about whether or not to take her seriously.

"I was just mentioning how much I . . . um, like maple syrup."

Ziva finished sorting her books and shouldered her bag. "I have to go find my homeroom," she announced. "I will see you later . . . unless you are going to follow me to my class, too?"

He grinned. "What are friends for?"

Now they were _friends_? Ziva was beginning to regret ever engaging in conversation with this strange kid.

"You do not have your own classes to get to?"

He shrugged. "They're in your direction."

"You do not know where my class _is_," she pointed out. "How can you be sure that it is near your own?"

The kid sighed. "Okay, don't look now, but there's this blond girl standing a couple of lockers down staring at me."

Ziva, of course, immediately turned to study the girl, who looked exactly like one of those irritating girls in that stupid movie she'd watched on the flight from Israel.

"Yeah, nice job 'not looking now,'" the boy remarked sarcastically. "Anyway, that's my ex-girlfriend Layne, who's recently gone a bit stalkerish on me. So I'm going to cut you a deal, kid."

"Do not call me kid."

"Whatever. You're new here, right? So it only makes sense that you'd need someone to show you around. And who better to do that than model student Anthony DiNozzo II?"

Ziva smirked at him. "Your name is Anthony?"

He frowned. "Call me Tony. Anyway, then I'll have an excuse not to talk to Layne for at least another day. Maybe even two, if you're a total idiot."

Ziva glared at him. "Must I remind you that I have a knife in my locker?"

"That is not the foundation on which to build a healthy relationship, Canadian," Tony scolded her. Ziva looked at him blankly.

"We do not _have _a relationship. You are just some kid who has followed me out of the office who will not shut up."

"Almost," Tony corrected. "I am just some kid who is going to show you around for the day. And I do too shut up."

"Really."

"Yes, Canadian. Really. Now let's get going, before Layne glares a hole in the side of my head." Tony grabbed his own bag and started down the hall.

"For the last time, I am not Canadian!" Ziva yelled after him. He cocked his head and put a hand to his ear, as if he could not hear her. Rolling her eyes and shouldering her bag while questioning her own sanity, Ziva followed the irritating green-eyed boy down the hallway.

**And that's a wrap. Review. Thanks!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Okay! I like this story way too much, plus you lovely reviewers got me motivated, and so here is the next chapter of Highschool Hazards. Sorry if the format's a bit screwy. I wrote it on my phone. **

**Disclaimer: I once had a creepy kitten statue, only it was too scary, so we disposed of it. **

Jenny was still trying to think of a way to explain to Vance that the boy in the waiting room - what was his name again?- had simply walked out of the office with that arrogant girl with the exotic name when her the next students trooped in. Jenny sighed tiredly and studied her next form of torture.

The girl was tall and slender, pretty, with green eyes and blonde pigtails, though her choice of attire was . . . questionable to say the least. Although, Jenny thought idly, she did like the girl's black platform boots, which easily added another six inches to the girl's stature. The girl clutched the hand of a tall, lanky boy, who wore an expression of extreme bemusement, as though not entirely sure as to how he'd gotten himself into this situation in the first place.

"Excuse me," the girl said sourly, "I was instructed to speak to the principal about a dress code which I was not aware existed until now!"

Jenny smiled sympathetically at the girl, grateful for something to distract Vance from the fact that she had lost one of his victims. Judging from the grim expression in the girl's green eyes, this would be quite the distraction."I'll check and see if he's able to talk to you," Jenny told the Goth girl, standing.  
>As a second thought struck her, she turned back. "Name?"<p>

"Abigail Sciuto," the girl replied. In answer to Jenny's questioning look at the silent boy beside her, Abigail added, "Oh, and this is Timmy. He's just here for moral support."

'Timmy' looked far from thrilled at the prospect of being morally supportive, but he voiced no complaints, merely shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"Okay." Jenny peeked through the thin pane of glass in the door of Vance's office to ensure the principal was not busy, then waved the blonde Goth in. She turned to the boy, who had awkwardly taken a seat in one of those atrociously bright, terribly uncomfortable chairs to wait. "Is she your girlfriend?" Jenny asked, smiling knowingly. The boy shifted uncomfortably, then grinned sheepishly.

"Um, no. Actually, I met her on the bus about fifteen minutes ago. I . . . am not sure how I got roped into this, to tell you the truth."

Jenny smiled and chuckled to herself. There was no mistaking the shell-shocked look in this boy's eyes. Fifteen minutes and the kid was already madly infatuated.

Tim shook his head, grinned ruefully, then frowned as something caught his eye."Whoa," he said, "that is one scary kitten statue!"

...

Vance looked up as someone knocked on his door several times, in rapid staccato taps that suggested an excess of energy . . . or an excess of caffeine.

The girl who marched in was wearing a determined frown and an extreme amount of dark makeup. Vance was fairly certain that he would have remembered this girl, had she been in the high school the previous year; therefore it was pretty safe to assume this dramatically garbed girl was a freshman. "Good morning," he greeted the blonde newcomer, whom the secretary had introduced as Abigail Sciuto. "What can I do for you, Abigail?"

"It's Abby," the Goth corrected politely. "And I was informed that the clothes I am wearing are 'inappropriate.'"

Vance couldn't help but smile as the girl made finger-quotes in the air and pulled a face. He studied the girl's outfit critically, then deliberated how to put it politely. "Perhaps your skirt is a bit short, Abigail . . . er, Abby."

Abigail snorted, flipping a blonde pigtail over her shoulder derisively. "Please. If anyone tries to look up my skirt, I'll kick 'em."

Vance eyed the girl's footwear dubiously. It was true; the boots were rather viciously spiked. First Miss David's knives, now lethal platform boots? "I would appreciate it if you refrained from violence, Abigail," he said finally. "And perhaps we could lower our hem-lines a bit?"

"I wasn't aware that we had a dress code," Abby said stiffly, her lip jutting stubbornly.

Vance sighed. "We ask that our students exercise judgment when it comes to clothing. Just a bit longer on the skirt, Abigai- erm, Abby. That's all I'm asking."

The girl sighed, tugged her skirt down about a sixteenth of an inch, and exited sulkily.

Vance had a grim feeling he had not seen the last of Miss Sciuto.

...

Abby was feeling a bit indignant, to say the least. If there was no dress code, then why couldn't she wear the clothes that she liked? It was illogical! She voiced as much to Timmy, who seemed to agree with Vance.

"Maybe," he ventured, "you should tone it down just a little?"

Abby sighed, waving a half-hearted goodbye to the secretary with the red hair, and stumped into the hall, feeling defeated.

"Just a little," Tim repeated tentatively, tagging behind.

"I can't," Abby said flatly, sighing. "I can't tone it down, Timmy. If I tone it down, then I'm not me. Abigail Sciuto is not a toned-down person."

"What you wear doesn't determine who you are," Tim pointed out logically, if stupidly. Abby sighed at this idiotic statement that only a boy could possibly make.

"That's easy for you to say," she huffed. "You're a guy. You wear jeans and a t-shirt every single day of your life. You wouldn't understand."

The hallways were beginning to fill, and several teens cast odd looks in Abby's direction. She serenely ignored them, seeking out her locker purposefully.  
>"Sometimes I wear khakis,instead of jeans," Tim offered, smiling apologetically. Abby smiled at her new friend.<p>

"You are so oblivious."

Tim rolled his eyes. "Gee, thanks."

Abby located her locker and started towards it. "Anytime, Timmy."

"So what are you going to do?"he asked, watching as she opened her locker and began to unload things from her black leather bookbag.

"I don't know." Abby frowned. "I have to do _something_. I mean, I don't want to look like everyone else, because I'm not everyone else, I'm me, and clothes say things about you, Tim. If I follow dress code, I will be forever known as the girl who does as everyone else does. I am not a monkey-see, monkey-doer, and I can't dress like one."

"Don't you think, maybe, you're making too big a deal of this?" Tim ventured.

Abby rolled her eyes and abandoned trying to explain the complexities of a fashion statement to an oblivious boy, whose idea of a wardrobe mix-up was a pair of khakis instead of jeans. Instead, she sought out an example. Boys were visual learners, after all."Okay, do you see that girl over there?" She asked, indicating a tan, exotic-looking teen who was talking to a cute guy with a great deal of irritation.

"DiNozzo's already found himself a new chick," Tim said disgustedly, shaking his head at the handsome guy.

Abby frowned. "Don't call girls 'chicks.' It's degrading."

Tim laughed. "You want degrading? Talk to DiNozzo."

"Not the point," Abby reprimanded. "I was talking about the girl."

Tim turned his attention to the girl, who looked quite exasperated. "Don't know who she is, but if she's smart she'll stay far away from Tony."

"Timmy's got a thing for Tony?" Abby asked teasingly. Tim shook his head.

"He calls me McNicknames," he said plaintitively, as though this explained the entire situation.

"He calls you McNickname?" Abby repeated, confused. "Why?"

"'Cause he's Tony DiNozzo." Tim rolled his eyes. "The guy's an idiot."

"A cute idiot," Abby amended. Tim rolled his eyes again.

"Whatever. What were you saying about the chi- er, girl?"

"Look what she's wearing. Cargo pants, teeny black tank top. There's someone who doesn't wear things just because everyone else does. That's like me, Tim, only my style is more gothic and less GI-Joe, if you know what I mean."

"Um," Tim said, even more confused than before. "Okay. So, where's your first class?"

Abby sighed and gave up. There was no hope for Timothy McGee when it came to fashion. She would just have to be fashion forward enough for the both of them.

Which gave her an idea . . .

**Maybe McAbby and Tiva will meet in the next chapter? What do you think? Oh, and some Jibbs. I will get on that, I promise.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Don't particularly love this chapter, but at least it's an update, right? I'm having a hard time writing Jibbs, but I gave it my best shot. Let me know how you feel about it. Thanks!**

**Disclaimer: On top of spaghettiiiiiiiiii, all covered in cheeeeeeeese . . . **

Jenny was exhausted. She knew that was rather pathetic, as all she had done today was sit at a desk and send unsuspecting children to their doom, but it didn't change the fact that her muscles were aching, her head was pounding, and her nerves were shot. She couldn't wait to grab another cup of coffee.

Vance showed her to the teacher's room at lunch break, on his way to some meeting or another that he was looking pretty nervous about.

Jenny stepped through the door of the teacher's and dove for the coffee pot, ignoring a better part of the teaching staff in favor of caffeine. The coffee was lukewarm and rather weak, but it was coffee, so she drank it. After all, beggars can't be choosers.

She recognized one or two of the people in the room. There was Gibbs, the gym teacher, and she thought that the man with the bow tie was the school guidance counselor. Then there was that blonde teacher with the grey roots who had come in to the office to complain about something or other. Jenny had lost track of the complaints after the first couple of people.

Gibbs gave her a half-smile as she took a seat by him, the only person she knew in the room. "How's it going?" he asked, sipping his own coffee. Jenny shrugged.

"Alright. I'm exhausted."

"You get used to it," Gibbs said.

"How long have you been here?" Jenny questioned through desperate swigs of coffee. Gibbs thought for a second, then answered.

"I started in May last year."

Jenny was surprised. "So you're new, too?"

He shrugged. "I guess. You get used to things around here pretty fast."

Jenny rolled her eyes. "So I've heard."

...

Much to Ziva's dismay, she had still not managed to lose her 'helpful' guide, nor had he ceased calling her a Canadian, by lunchtime.

"So this is the lunch room," Tony announced, a bit unnecessarily, given the large sign outside the door that read 'Lunch Room.' "Stay away from anyone who sits in the back of the cafeteria, is wearing leather, and calls you 'babe.'"

"Do not worry," Ziva answered dryly. "If anyone does anything stupid, I have a knife in my bag."

Tony rolled his eyes. "No pressure. Anyway, don't eat anything from the lunch bar. It's all at least three years old. Stay away from anyone nerdy, and you should be good."

"You are abandoning me?" she teased, pulling a forlorn face.

"You've been threatening to slice me to bits all day," he reminded her. "What happened? Found you'd grown to care? I do tend to have that effect on women."

Ziva rolled her eyes. "I am more than happy to get rid of you, believe me."

"Good," Tony said briskly, apparently not offended. "Then I'll meet you back here after lunch?"

Ziva rolled her eyes again. "That is not necessary. I know my way around now."

"Yeah, but you can't throw me to the wolves like that after all I've done for you!" he protested.

"You do not call this 'throwing me to the wolves?'" she teased, gesturing to the bustling cafeteria. "I do not know anyone."

Tony shrugged. "You could sit with me and my friends," he suggested. Ziva made a face.

"If your friends are anything like you, I would rather sit by myself."

Tony didn't seem particularly insulted, nearly nodded reasonably. "That's probably a good idea. My friends are kind of idiots."

She smirked. "Like you?"

He grinned. "Is that what you think aboot me, Xena?"

She made a face at him. "Yes. Now go be an idiot with your idiot friends. I will go fend off the wolves by myself."

She started towards the lunch-line, only to be followed once again by Tony. "Oh, come on. Now I feel guilty."

She smirked at him. "You should feel guilty. You are leaving me all alone in a foreign environment, defenseless."

"You have a knife in your bag," he pointed out. "That's hardly defenseless."

Ziva ignored him and grabbed a tray. "I told you not to eat the cafeteria food," he scolded her. She shrugged.

"I do not have anything else. Now, are you leaving me alone or what?"

Tony hovered, feeling kind of guilty. "Well, now I can't, 'cause you made me feel bad!"

She rolled her eyes. "Please. Do us both a favor and go away. I was joking. I do not need you to help me make friends."

He groaned. "Now I can't tell if you're just saying that because you're trying to be nice, or because you actually hate me!"

She fixed him with a look. "I do not feel any pressing need to be particularly nice to you, Tony. Now go away before I kill you."

Thinking that, unless the girl was a really good bluff and actually wanted him to stay, he was only endangering himself by hanging around, Tony skedaddled.

"See you around, Canadian."

She had to suppress the urge to throw something at him.

...

Abby had run all the way from her last class on the other side of the building in platform boots, which was not particularly easy or safe, in order to obtain an empty table for herself, Tim, and another lost soul she'd picked up in advanced biology, a bespectacled, gawky kid by the name of James Palmer, whose awkward demeanor made Timmy look as smooth and suave as a game-show host.

She'd arrived in the cafeteria, nearly bowling over a teacher in the process, winded but victorious, plopping down her leather satchel - decorated with red rhinestones and white velvet skull stickers - onto the seat of a vacant circular table triumphantly.

She'd brought her own lunch, as years of boarding school had left her experienced in the horrors of school meals, but she decided to wait until Timmy and Jimmy - oh, hey! That rhymed! - arrived to start eating.

Instead, she studied the cafeteria interestedly. There were people everywhere, laughing, gossiping, flirting, fighting, throwing things, and occasionally even eating, but those weren't the kind Abby was looking for. She was on a mission to find people like herself, with a personality that didn't change with the status quo, people who looked as lost as she would have been, if not for Timmy.

Sixth period lunch was a hodgepodge of students, from freshman to seniors, whose schedules were a bit screwy, thanks to electives, like sports, drama, band, or honors classes that conflicted with the class plan. If Abby were going to find any kindred spirits, they would be here.

There were a couple of people who looked promising, but one girl in particular caught Abby's eye. She recognized her as the girl she had pointed out to Timmy earlier, the one with the G.I. Joe outfit.

She'd seen the girl, along with that DiNozzo kid that Timmy seemed to hate so much, several times throughout the day, but she hadn't had a chance to talk to either. Now seemed as good a time as any, especially since the girl was all by herself, searching for an empty seat in the crowded room, so Abby waved the girl over.

"Hi," she said cheerfully as the girl approached, looking a bit puzzled. "You can sit here if you want."

Surprisingly, the girl didn't take this quite the way Abby had been expecting. She looked almost insulted, but before she could answer, another voice cut in.

"For God's sake, Ziva, sit down. Don't be an idiot."

Both girls turned to face the good-looking DiNozzo kid, with varied expressions of welcome.

Abby smiled at the guy, taking in chiseled features and very nice green eyes. The brunette girl sighed exasperatedly.

"I thought I told you to leave me alone, Tony."

Tony shrugged. "Well excuse me for having a conscience. I was just coming to get you, ' cause I felt like a jerk, but I guess she beat me to it." He nodded at Abby. "Hey. I'm Tony DiNozzo."

She smiled back. "Abigail Sciuto. I'm a freshman. You're welcome to sit here, too, if you'd like."

He grinned. "Nah, I'm okay. Me and Zi don't actually like each other that much, but I felt bad-"

Ziva sighed. "I do not need your help, Tony."

He held his hands up defensively. "Hey, hey, I'm leaving, I'm leaving."

She rolled her eyes at him and turned to Abby exasperatedly. "I am sorry. I do not know exactly why he had singled me out to harass . . ."

Abby laughed. "He's cute."

Ziva made a face. "He is an idiot."

Abby laughed again. "Well, as I said, I'm Abigail Sciuto. I'm a freshman."

"Ziva David," Ziva replied, taking a seat across the table from Abby. "I am a junior."

"Are you, like, an exchange student or something?" Abby asked, opening a baggie of carrots and offering one to Ziva.

"No, thank you," Ziva said politely, declining the carrots before answering. "And, no, I am not an exchange student."

Abby waited for more information, but none came as the pretty brunette began to pick at her pizza cautiously.

"So, where are you from originally?" Abby asked. Joking, she added, "I bet guys dig the accent.

Ziva smirked. "I do not know about that. The only guy I have talked to today is Tony, and we share a mutual dislike for one another."

Abby wondered if this girl was purposely avoiding answering her first question about her country of origin, but soon put her suspicions aside. After all, what could a 16-year-old girl have to hide?

...

Vance was not exactly enjoying his lunch break, which he thought might have something to do with the angry Israeli politician who was glaring back at him over the computer screen's web-cam.

Apparently Ziva David was going to be a bit more problematic than he'd first anticipated . . . and his hopes had never been comparatively high in the first place.

"You are telling me that my daughter arrived, unaccompanied, on the _school bus_?" Eli David spit the last few words like they tasted bad.

"I was under the impression that she would be bringing her own security," Vance answered stiffly. "We were not aware-"

"She took the _school bus_?"

Vance sighed. "I can assure you, Director, that there's nothing particularly terrible about public transportation."

"She could have been killed! Ziva knows better." Eli shook his head furiously. "I knew this was a terrible idea. That is it. Please instruct my daughter to pack her things. She will be returning to Israel immediately."

Vance couldn't help but scowl. Eli David didn't seem to understand that he, as a mere school principal, could not _order_ Ziva David around. In fact, from the two-minute conversation he'd had with the girl, Vance had gotten the impression that there wasn't really _anyone_ who could over Ziva around, and live to tell the tale.

"I don't think I can do that, sir," he said finally. "Your daughter does not take well to being ordered around."

Eli chuckled. "Don't I know it, Principal Vance. She does not listen to me either." His face grew hard and ugly. "But she will have to learn. She is but a child. MY child. And she will learn obedience."

Vance didn't like the possessive way that Deputy Director David said "MY child." There was something possessive in it that made him feel uneasy, something hard in the eyes behind those glasses. It made him fear for Ziva David.

And that was strange, because Ziva had given off the aura of a girl who could take care of herself, of someone who inspired fear, but was not subject to it.

But the hard brown eyes of Eli David reminded Leon Vance that, after all, Ziva was merely a sixteen-year-old, and he suddenly knew, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, what he had to do.

As soon as the video conference was terminated, Vance made a dash for the teacher's room. He had a Leroy Jethro Gibbs to find.

**Gasp! Do I sense a plotline? What happened to this being a load of fluff? Ladies and gentlemen, you have just witnessed something miraculous! This story just jumped a whole bunch up on my priority list! Do we like? **


	5. Chapter 5

**It's short and comprised mostly of text messages, but it's got a lot of plot, so hang on tight. **

**Disclaimer: boom de yada, boom de yada**

6:47 pm

_T - Hey, Canadian. What's happening?_

Ziva sighed and glared at her phone irritably. While the number who had texted her was unfamiliar, there was no mistaking the term of 'endearment' within.

_**Z - How did you get this number?**_

It was a good question. She had thought her phone number was secure; it should have been, after the massive amount of money her father had spent, putting up firewalls and such.

_T - Eh, I went through your phone while you were talking to the biology teacher_

So much for security. Ziva wondered if this guy had any sense at all of boundaries. She doubted it.

_**Z -I do not recall giving you permission to go through my cell phone.**_

_Well, when you leave it on the desk 2 inches away fr. my hand…it was tempting me. Who am I to say no 2 temptation?_

Ziva wished Tony was in the room so that she could throw something - preferably sharp - at him. Glaring at inanimate objects right now just wasn't cutting it. Her phone buzzed again, alerting her to a new message.

_T - Did you save my #?_

_**Z - Why? I thought we had agreed that we do not like each other?**_

_T - Kid, I don't like half the people I hang out with. That doesn't stop me from hanging out with 'em_

_**Z - I thought we discussed this - do not call me kid. **_

_T - Whatever. So - did you save my #?_

Ziva sighed, made a face, and saved Tony's number to her cell phone irritably.

_**Z - Yes. Now will you leave me alone?**_

_T - If I was going to leave you alone I wouldn't have told you to save my number. You're in for a looooooong night, kid._

Ziva hucked a pillow violently across her bedroom.

_**Z - DO NOT CALL ME KID!**_

…

Tim McGee was tired. It was late, the day had been stressful, and all he wanted was to sleep. Unfortunately, Abby had other ideas. She had texted him several times throughout the afternoon, asking his opinion on clothing, which had led to much hemming and hawing on his part as he tried to puzzle out what she wanted him to answer.

_A - What about if I wore my black sweater-dress and my blue and purple tie-dye leggings?_

Tim blinked and stalled for time.

_**T - They have tie-dye leggings**__?_

_A - Yes! I was sooooooo excited when I saw them in the store. I bought like eight different pairs, and the person at the counter looked at me like I was crazy, cuz of all the stuff that I bought. I also got this gold clutch purse that was splattered with black paint that I totally loved except I could never find anything to wear it with, and then my dog got to it, and tore it to shreds, and it gave him a stomach ache and he had to go to the vet. _

Tim read this over twice before even processing it.

_**T - Oh. Um, cool.**_

_A - Very. Except not the dog part, because we went to the vet in the middle of the night and I was in my pajamas, and the vet was really young and cute, and it was kinda embarrassing, so I waited in the waiting room and made friends with this nun, whose Doberman Pinscher was sick. I go bowling with her on the weekend sometimes. The nun, I mean, not the dog, cuz the dog actually died, so…_

Tim McGee was feeling a bit confused.

_**T - Well, that's…**_

He didn't actually have an adjective to describe the situation, because Abby had blasted through about eight situations - everything from cute vets to nuns to . . . bowling Doberman Pinschers? Finally, he deleted the message and started again.

_**T - I should go. I've got a lot of homework to-**_

Before he could finish that text, another from Abby buzzed in.

_A - Oh, guess what? Remember Ziva, from lunch?_

How could Tim not remember? She'd been a bit unforgettable, what with the hot accent and the pretty curls. Not to mention the whole situation with the muscled senior who'd tried to call her 'babe.'

Before Tim could text any of this, Abby was back and shooting off rapid texts, as if unable to contain her excitement.

_A - Well, she lives right behind my house. Like, the back of her house faces the back of my house, and I can see her window from my window, which I guess is kinda creepy that I know where her room is. But isn't that cool?_

Tim groaned. Now not only did he have Abby, the crazy Goth who he liked a bit more than he was willing to admit, on his block, he had the scary chick who'd sent a linebacker on the varsity football team to the nurse's office!

_**T - Yeah, that is-**_

Another text from Abby, another use of the backspace key.

_A - I can see her! She's on her bed, texting someone. Who do you think she's texting? It's not me, because you're the only one who's texted me today, except for my Uncle Barney. Oh, and my second cousin Valerie texted me once to ask if I knew where her roller-blades are. Which was kinda weird, since she lives in Oregon._

_**T - I don't know who she'd be texting, Abby.**_

_A - Yeah, and I guess it's kinda creepy that I care, right?_

Um . . . yeah, maybe a little . . .

Abby continued before Tim could think of a tactful way to inform his new friend that yeah, that _was_ a little creepy.

_A - That's weird. _

_**T - What's weird?**_

_A - Someone's in her backyard, like…omg. Is that a gun?_

That caught Tim's attention. He jumped to his feet, hurriedly tapping in a reply as he dashed to the window. He could see Abby's home, a few houses down from his own, but that was about it.

_**T - What are you talking about? A gun? Where? Are you okay?**_

_A - Fine. Except . . . hold on. I'll use my night vision goggles . . . please hold._

It didn't really surprise Tim all that much that Abigail Sciuto had night-vision goggles handy in her room.

_A - Yeah. It's a gun!... What should I do? _

_**T - Tell your parents?**_

_A - I'm home alone. Madre and padre went out for their anniversary._

Tim cursed.

_**T - I'm alone, too, b/c my parents are at Sara's gymnastics meet**_

_A - Should I call the police? Oh, wait - I'll call Ziva instead._

…

Tony DiNozzo had been really, really bored. Like, the kind of bored that almost made _homework _seem like a good idea. There'd been nothing on TV, nothing that caught his interest in the DVD cabinet, and he hadn't yet fallen far enough to consider homework.

So he'd picked up his phone and decided to do what he did best - annoy people. A recently added contact caught his eye and he smirked.

_T - Hey, Canadian. What's happening? _

_**Z - How did you get this number?**_

Tony grinned, cheering up and feeling a bit less lonely as he continued his conversation with the irate Israeli chick.

They'd been talking - well, more like _he'd _been talking, and she'd been telling him, with increasingly violent undertones, to go away - for about five minutes or so when she texted him.

_**Z - One second. I am getting a call.**_

_T - No prob, bob. _

Tony took the brief interlude in the most amusing conversation as an opportunity to go heat himself up some of yesterday's pizza. He performed the few necessary steps automatically, the same way he'd done it a million times before.

His dad had hired a cook a couple of years ago, to fix Tony meals and generally keep an eye on things, but Tony had quickly put an end to that. Now the cook - a fairly agreeable middle-aged woman - came only on days when Senior was home. And that didn't happen very often.

When he returned to the living room, his cell phone was flashing, proclaiming that he had a new message from Ziva.

_**Z - Call the police. **_

Tony frowned, wondering if she was joking. Just in case, he fired back a quick text before going to retrieve the house phone.

_T - What? Are you okay?_

The reply was almost immediate, and he sighed in relief, then blinked in confusion at what it read.

_**Z - I am fine. There was an intruder. He was dealt with, but I suppose we should alert the police, yes?**_

_T - What do you mean - dealt with? _

_**Z - He is no longer a threat. Please call the police. My phone lines were cut.**_

Her phone lines were cut? Tony had thought that only happened in movies. And what did 'no longer a threat' mean?

Thinking that it was probably best that he just did as he was told - after all, he'd seen what happened to the linebacker who messed with Ziva - he snatched up the phone and dialed 9-1-1.

…

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was just about to fall asleep when his phone buzzed, bringing him back into the bleak world of the conscious. Yuck. Feeling decidedly disgruntled, he grabbed his phone and studied the screen crankily. He had a text from Mike Franks, his 'other' boss.

_M - Probie, we got ourselves a break-in at Z.D.'s house._

Great. Gibbs got off the couch, cracked his back, and scurried to collect his stuff, shooting off a quick text to Franks first.

_**G - Got it. Meet you there. She ok?**_

_M - She's fine. Intruder isn't_

_**G - We know why he was there?**_

_M - Nope. Was in her room, doing homework when a neighbor noticed someone in the yard. Z. climbed out onto the roof with a gun she wasn't supposed to have and shot the guy in the head._

Gibbs, a gunny himself, whistled, impressed, as he shrugged on his coat and started out the door.

_**G - From the roof?**_

_M - I told you, Probie. This ain't a regular teenager._

_**G - I'll be over in 5.**_

Gibbs started the car and backed down the driveway, wondering if he had time for a coffee run. It was looking to be a long night.

**Whoohoo! Plotline, anyone? Sorry for not updating sooner. I've been busy cramming schoolwork and writing this angsty Tiva one-shot that instantly became my baby. *shameless plugging* Next update should be tomorrow or Sunday. I'm leaving after that for vacation. Should be back by Saturday. Then updates will start slowing, since I'm back to school, with homework, but I'll do my best! **

**Review and make my day!**


	6. Chapter 6

**I'm writing as fast as I can, trying to beat our dear friend Irene, who is racing up the coast, determined on shutting down my power. I don't know when my next update will be, what with power outages and flight cancellations. My vacation got canceled, we don't know if and when we'll lose power, so things are in a bit of turmoil. I'm going to try to update everything, to tide you all over until things return to normal. Read and enjoy!**

**My disclaimer was killed in a tragic accident involving Hurricane Irene and a massive dish of cheese Danish. Funeral date to be announced. **

Tim was worried. He hadn't heard from Abby since she'd departed to call Ziva, and now there were sirens wailing in the distance. Why the heck was there someone with a gun in a middle-class neighborhood in DC?

_**T - Abby? Abs, is everything ok? What's going on?**_

He sighed in relief when she answered promptly.

_A - I don't know, to tell you the truth. I called Ziva, and she started cursing in some language - Hebrew, maybe? - and told me to stay inside and call the police. So I did, and I kept watching from the window, and I saw her climb out her window, onto the roof, with a gun. And then there was gunshots, so I'm not actually sure what's going on, but I'm freaking out. Can you come over? Please? Tim, I'm so scared._

Tim was not thrilled with the idea of running through the darkened neighborhood with a potential gunfight in the makings, but the fear was so evident in Abby's message that he couldn't bring himself to say no.

_**T - I'll be right over. Keep the doors locked until I get there.**_

_A - Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! You just totally saved my life! I'll go find us some ice cream!_

Tim swallowed grimly, then went on a brief closet-dive, emerging with a metal baseball bat. Feeling like this was something out of a bad horror movie, and not relishing his role, he started down the stairs, gripping the bat like his life depended on it.

He opened the door and dashed out into the night, starting at the noise of the leaves crunching beneath his feet, and feeling like his heart was somewhere in his throat.

That had better be some good ice cream.

…

Tony was feeling a little bit baffled.

More than a little bit actually, because he was absolutely clueless as to what was going on, which he supposed qualified for a bit stronger a vocabulary word, though he couldn't think of one. School had never really been his thing.

He'd called the police, reporting that there'd been an intruder at the address Ziva had texted him. After hanging up, he'd immediately texted the Israeli girl again.

_T - Are you ok? What's going on?_

_**Z - It is nothing.**_

_T - right, because nothing involves 'dealing with' intruders? _

_**Z - Look, I am alright. He did not hurt me. Are the police on the way?**_

_T - They said 5 or 10 minutes. You're sure you're okay?_

He could practically hear the exasperation in her voice as he read her reply.

_**Z - I am totally, 100% fine. **_

_T - what exactly did you do to the guy?_

He didn't get a reply, which concerned him. What if she _had _been hurt, and she'd lost consciousness? What if there'd been more than one intruder, and they'd captured her?

_T - Helloooooo….?_

_**Z - Look. I . . . cannot talk right now. There is someone at the door, and I am not sure if they are actually federal agents. Can you go on the internet and look up NCIS for me?**_

Tony did as he was told, quickly Google-ing the initials.

_T- says they're a government agency, Naval Criminal Investigative Services . . . you on the run from the law?_

_**Z - In a manner of speaking. Alright, I should go answer the door before they bash it down. Thank you for your help.**_

_T - whoa, whoa, whoa - don't I get an explanation? You can't leave me in the dark like that!_

It was severe punctuation abuse, but he felt it was necessary, given the situation. Of all the girls in the world he could have chosen to annoy, he had to pick the one on the run from the government, didn't he? It was just his luck.

_**Z - I will explain tomorrow. Goodbye.**_

_T - you'd better. _

Feeling a little bit unnerved, Tony quickly went around, checking to ensure the various doors and large windows of his house were locked securely. After all, you could never be too careful.

…

When Gibbs rolled into the driveway, Franks was already at the front door, pounding away. "What's going on?" he called, jogging up to the front step.

"Kid's not answering," Franks said grimly, pulling his gun.

That was not good. "She could be hurt?"

"Or she could be standing at the door with a gun," Mike finished. "I'm telling you, probie, this ain't a regular teenager. She's a younger version of her father."

This was not a compliment, and both men knew it. NCIS had worked with Eli David various times, none of which had ended particularly smoothly. The Mossad Deputy Director was a gifted agent and a skilled tactician, but he was ruthless, with a firm belief that the end _always_ justified the means, no matter the consequences.

"David!" Mike yelled one more time, slamming a fist against the door. "Federal agents!"

"Why don't we just bust it down?" Gibbs questioned. Usually his mentor had no qualms about destruction. In fact, the man often seemed to enjoy it a bit more than was actually necessary.

"First of all, the kid's probably got the place wired like a Christmas tree," Mike said. "There's nothing to stop her from blowing us to bits the second we walk inside."

Gibbs was surprised that his boss, a chauvinist if he'd ever seen one, was giving so much credit to a 16-year-old girl. However, he knew better than to question Mike.

"So what _do _we do?"

"Knock," Mike said, doing just that, with increasing violence. "Open up! NCIS!"

Finally, the door opened a crack, and the barrel of an assault rifle poked out. Immediately, Gibbs and Mike sprang to opposite sides of the door, pulling their own guns and yelling.

"Federal Agents! Drop your weapons!"

The voice that answered was accented and remarkably cool, given the situation. "Drop your badges in front of the door, where I can see them. Make another move and I will detonate the mines buried in the yard."

After exchanging a quick glance, both men pulled their badges, tossing them lightly so that they landed directly in front of the crack in the door. Holding the gun with one hand, the girl reached with the other to scoop up the badges, scrutinizing them carefully. Finally, she opened the door.

"You are with the government?" she asked calmly, sliding the assault rifle into the waistband of her cargo pants.

"Naval Criminal Investigative Services." Franks nodded. "I'm Mike Franks. This is Special Agent Gibbs."

"There was an intruder?" Gibbs prompted, stepping into the house as the girl slowly moved aside.

"Yes. The occupants of the house behind mine noticed someone in the yard and called to let me know."

"And instead of calling the police you shot the man yourself?" Gibbs asked incredulously, if a bit admiringly.

Ziva shrugged. "My phone lines had been cut. I instructed a friend to call the police, and did what was necessary."

"A friend?" Mike repeated, pulling out a notebook to scribble down the information. Now they had witnesses. Great. That made things a bit more difficult to cover up.

The girl made a face. "Well, perhaps he is more of an acquaintance. But, yes, I had him call the police."

"Name?"

She bit her lip, trying to recall. "I believe it was Anthony . . . yes, Anthony DiNozzo."

Gibbs couldn't help but groan. "You told DiNozzo?"

She studied him, then blinked, surprised. "You are the gym teacher at-"

"Yeah, it was an undercover position," Mike cut in crisply. "Keeping an eye on you."

This did not sit well with Miss David. "I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

"Obviously." Gibbs gestured to the rifle. Ziva stroked it fondly with a smile. "How the hell did you get your hands on that?"

She shrugged. "I had a contact arrange for some equipment to be left at one of our drop points."

It sounded so wrong, the sixteen-year-old talking about 'contacts' and 'equipment' and 'drop points,' but Ziva sounded perfectly comfortable with it.

"You shouldn't have weapons in the house," Mike said.

Ziva rolled her eyes. "Obviously, they were necessary."

"Where's your guardian anyway?" Gibbs asked, turning to survey the dim, empty house. Another shrug.

"I did not see a need for her, so she was dismissed."

Mike chuckled. "Whether or not you see a need, Missy, you're technically a minor. You need a guardian."

"I can take care of-"

Mike turned to Gibbs with an ungodly grin. "And I believe I know just the man."

**Haha - Gibbs and Ziva! That should be fun! Tell me what you think. I'll still get your reviews from my phone, even if we do lose power, so fire away. Thanks!**


	7. Chapter 7

**I'm back! Sorry for the long delay. I had no electricity up until yesterday. It was torturous, let me tell you. Anyway, here's an update to make up for it. This is a Tiva chapter. Sorry for you McAbby and Jibbs fans out there. I promise the next one will have everyone in it, but I felt some explanations were in order. Thanks!**

**Disclaimer -Who put the bomp in the bop-she-bop-she-bop?  
><strong>

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was having a bad day. Like, the kind of bad day when you woke up in a bed that wasn't your own with a splitting headache and the confusing and slightly disheartening knowledge that you weren't even hungover. No, the bed was the pull-out couch of a sixteen-year-old assassin-turned-teenager, and the headache was the result of the aforementioned ex-assassin's over-zealous sense of self-preservation, which was active even in a sleepy state of confusion, brought on by one of the worst fit of nightmares that Gibbs had ever seen.

He hadn't even been able to get really mad about it, because Ziva David, who only hours before had shot an intruder from the rooftop without batting an eyelash, had been terrified out of her mind. It had taken a cup of tea and all his skill as a hostage negotiator to get the girl calm enough to return to sleep. It had taken even longer for he himself to return to dreamland.

He forced himself out of bed, wincing at the way his head throbbed when he moved, and stumped into the bathroom to study the lovely patch of purple bruising that had taken residence on his forehead, shaped vaguely like the butt of the gun lying beneath Miss David's pillow. It was only thanks to his own lightning reflexes that he still had both eyes inside his head.

Downstairs, the kitchen was neat and sparse, just like the rest of the house. There were no personal effects anywhere, unless you counted weaponry, of which there was an unhealthy quantity.

Ziva David was sitting in one of the two chairs at the kitchen table, eating a banana and reading something on her phone with a look of exasperation.

"Morning," Gibbs said in greeting, heading straight for the freezer. There were no icepacks or frozen peas, so he filled a plastic bag with ice cubes and held it to his forehead instead.

Ziva gave him a half-smile. "Good morning. I am sorry about your head."

He smirked. "So'm I. That happen often?"

She shrugged. "I always sleep with a gun beneath my pillow. I have found it to be beneficial in the past."

Gibbs crossed his arms and leaned back against the cheap linoleum of the countertop. "Wasn't what I meant."

Suddenly the teenager's eyes seemed a darker shade of brown, guarded and suspicious. "I do not know what you are talking about."

She tossed her banana peel in the trash, swung her backpack - a plain olive green affair - over one shoulder and stalked out of the room before Gibbs could respond.

"Your dad doesn't want you taking the bus," Gibbs called, abandoning his ice pack and hurrying after the Israeli teen.  
>"I am not taking the bus," Ziva answered coolly, waving away her father's preferences with one dismissive flick of the wrist. "I have somehow been persuaded into catching a ride with a friend."<p>

"A friend?" Gibbs repeated, raising an eyebrow to prompt for further information. Ziva made a face.

"Well, perhaps he is more of an acquaintance."

Gibbs rolled his eyes. "You've been in America for, what, three days, and you're already smitten with DiNozzo? I thought you were smarter than that."

She smirked. "I am not at all interested in Tony. He is an idiot. However, he helped me yesterday, and I feel I owe him an explanation."

"You're going to-"

"Lie," she finished calmly, slipping a knife into her combat boot. "I would only be endangering his life by telling him the truth, yes?"

Gibbs sighed. "Of all the people you had to pick to make friends with . . ."

"I did not choose to make friends with him," she replied, sounding indignant, "I was fairly mugged by the boy."

Outside, a horn blared. Gibbs peeked out the window to study the turquoise mustang convertible idling at the curb. "Don't let him try anything," he cautioned. Ziva snorted at the thought.

"And don't hurt him," Gibbs added as the slim, dark-haired girl opened the door. She smirked, then grimaced as DiNozzo called out a greeting.

"Mornin', Canadian!"

She turned back with an exasperated roll of the eyes. "I cannot make any promises."

...

Tony leaned on the horn again, for reputational purposes, as Ziva ran across the yard to the car. She was dressed, again, in cargo pants, this time with a white baggy blouse on top.

"I am coming," she said with a frown, sliding into the passenger's seat. "You do not have to honk."

He shrugged. "What's a horn for if you don't use it?"

She smirked dangerously, in a way that half turned him on, half creeped him out. "I could say the same for my knife."

He looked away from the road long enough to spare his passenger a disapproving frown that did not seem to effect her much. "Not nice. No threatening the driver, Xena."

She sighed. "I do not know why I agreed to ride with you."

"Because you've fallen for the potent DiNozzo charm," Tony explained kindly. "Happens to the best of us, don't worry about it."

Ziva rolled her eyes and put her feet up on the dashboard. "Just bring me to school, please."

"We've got a half hour to kill," Tony announced, consulting his watch. "Want a donut?"

Ziva smiled. "Always."

They turned into the parking lot of the nearest cafe, and Tony led the way up the walkway. Ziva made a face when he held the door for her with over-exaggerated courtesy.

"I can get the door myself."

"Nah, you're just a feeble female," Tony disagreed, relishing the dangerous feeling that he was playing with fire.

Ziva was not much perturbed. "A feeble female with a knife," she purred in her accented voice, scanning the menu board.

"It's no fun pushing your buttons when your comeback is always 'I'm a scary ninja chick with a knife,'" Tony informed her. "I want you to invest in some new comebacks for me, okay? To keep our lives interesting."

"You are going to pay for the feeble female's donut, yes?" she asked, ignoring his pep talk.

"Um, did I say that?"

She smiled at him. "Tony, I would hate to use my tired old comeback again, but in my pocket I do have-"

He gulped. "My treat." She patted his cheek.

"Good boy."

After the cashier handed him the coffees and a bag with the donuts, he and Ziva snagged a table in the corner. He courteously allotted her a whole thirty seconds of silence before launching into his interrogation.

"So why was there a man in your yard and why did you shoot him? For that matter, how did you shoot him, being that you're a feeble female and he was a big burly intruder guy?"

She sipped her coffee, broke off a piece of his chocolate donut, and ate it before answering. "I am from Israel."

He stole a piece of her own donut. "Yeah, so I've heard."

"You know what Mossad is?"

He thought for a second. "It's not that chocolate whipped cream stuff, is it?"

She smiled. "That is mousse. Mossad is a bit less friendly."

He sipped his coffee and nodded for her to continue. After eating a bit more of his donut, she continued.

"It is a government agency, a bit like your Homeland Security, that eliminates forces that could be a danger to Israel."

Tony nodded. "Like the Taliban and stuff, right?"

"Yes. My father was a Mossad agent, and I was to be one, too."

"Was?" Tony echoed, noting the past tense that Ziva had intentionally let slip.

"Yes," Ziva lied easily, adding a note of sorrow to her voice for emphasis. "He died last month in a bombing."

"Oh," his face took on a strange look. "I'm sorry."

She shrugged, not wanting to make a big deal out of something that wasn't even true. "Do not be. He saw me only as a tool, a human weapon."

That much, at least, was true.

"And you didn't have any family who'd take you?"

She shook her head. "People do not live long in Israel."

He nodded and took a bite of her donut, absorbing this slowly. "Okay. But that doesn't explain-"

Ziva thought fast, buying herself a few second by taking an extra large gulp of coffee. It was hot, and the bitter liquid seared her tongue.

"The intruder was only that," she said as soon her tongue had regained some feeling. "A petty criminal."

"Then what about those navy cop people?" Tony asked, looking confused and even a little suspicious. Ziva took a more cautious sip of coffee.

"They had some indirect dealing with my father, and have now been assigned to keep an eye on me," she answered finally, lying quickly and easily.  
>Tony seemed to have run out of questions, and she was out of coffee, so the two tossed their trash and headed for the car.<p>

"Thanks," Tony said unexpectedly as they pulled out of the parking lot. Ziva was surprised.

"For what?"

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "For, you know, talking about it. I'm not good at that kind of stuff and-"

"It is fine," she cut him off as a strange feeling erupted in her gut.

Oddly, it felt a lot like guilt.

**FYI - all the stuff Ziva said was a lie. Her dad is alive, and directing Mossad, remember? Just so you all know. Let me know what you thought of it. Next chapter will have more McAbby and Jibbs, I promise. Review, por favor? Thanks!**


	8. Chapter 8

**This chapter made me laugh a lot. A teenaged Abby is just too easy to write . . . plus she scarily reminds me a lot of myself, which is weird since I'm not a Goth. This has got the makings of McAbby, Jibbs, and some Tiva because I couldn't resist. Tony and Ziva play off each other so well, that I couldn't help but throw in a blurb about them at the end. I have a hard time with Jibbs, because I only started watching NCIS halfway through season 7, and I've only seen some with Jenny. Let me know if you think it needs improvement, okay?**

**Disclaimer - This world is a cruel, cruel place in which children do not get ownership rights of NCIS just because they're cute and overly-obsessive. **

Abby bounced into school in her three inch heels and slammed directly into Principal Vance, putting a bit of a damper on her plan to stay under the fashion police's radar for the day.

"Ow," she said, scrambling to her feet before someone could look up her skirt. "Sorry, Principal Vance. I guess I wasn't really looking where I was going. Well, that's not true, because I _was_ looking where I was going, but since I couldn't see through the wall, I couldn't _see_ where I was going, but not for a lack of trying. 'Cause I was _looking_, just not . . . _seeing_. You know?"

Vance's forehead crinkled as he thought about this baffling piece of logic that had been thrown upon him. He gave up after a second. Some things were too deep to think about before 8am. Instead, he focused on something relatively simple, like dress code violation.

"Miss Sciuto," he began, then amended as Abby's eyes narrowed. "Abigail, I believe we discussed-"

"Principal Vance," Abigail cut in forcefully, "after practicing discretion, I decided that these clothes were appropriate, because the skirt is actually a skort, which means it has shorts underneath, and my tights are opaque, so there's not too much leg showing. And look" - she held up a booted foot for Vance's inspection - "no spikes!"

"I-" Vance knew defeat when he saw it, even when it was wrapped in 'opaque' tights and a day-glo purple dog collar. "Good job," he said finally, and fairly ran away. Abby allowed herself a self-satisfied smirk, then ran off to report the success to Timmy.

...

Tim was trying frantically to complete his art appreciation assignment when Abby found him, sitting on his backpack like it was an island in a sea of eraser shavings, with a sketchpad in hand.

"Hey, McGee! You're looking at . . . Um, me!" Abby frowned when Tim didn't look up. "But it's exciting that you're looking at me," she explained, "because the me you're looking at is wearing her own clothes . . . as opposed to, like, someone else's clothes . . . which would be weird . . ."

Tim didn't look up. "I'm supposed to be recreating my own version of Starry Night by Van Gogh," he explained through gritted teeth. "Help me, Abby!"

Abby's nose wrinkled as she studied Tim's work, a series of pencil-shaded blobs floating over the skimpiest Christmas tree Abby had ever seen, and shook her head disapprovingly.

"'Your own version' doesn't mean to copy it exactly, Tim," she told her new friend. "Here, scootch." She squeezed into the corner next to Tim and scooped up the sketchpad.

Five minutes later, the tree was full and flowering with strange red blobs that Abby had ingeniously colored with a stick of lipstick. The blobs that had been posing as stars were now disguised with lavish doses of glitter eye shadow that smelled, according to Abby, of pina colada.

Abby drew back satisfied, a pigtail smacking into Tim's face in the process. It, too, smelled of pina colada.

"Stop smelling me, Tim, and help me blow on the glitter so it dries," Abby instructed around furious blowing.

Awkwardly, Tim did as he was told, wondering if his teacher considered sweet-smelling glitter and 'Kiss of Death'-colored lipstick 'creative.'

He certainly did.

...

On most days, Gibbs' morning involved a great deal of hiding, avoiding the temperamental principal who had a deep rooted dislike for federal agents undercover as gym teachers. Today, however, he was forced to head straight to the office, never a good way to start your day. Worse yet, he had a substantial amount of paperwork to go through. Fantastic.

The pretty red-head substitute secretary was there again, to Gibbs' delight. He and the previous secretary had not exactly gotten along.

"Morning," she greeted him as he walked in. "Are you in trouble, too?"

"Not even a question anymore," Gibbs answered, only half-joking. Between Franks and Vance, there wasn't a whole lot of time when he _wasn't _in trouble.

She smirked. "Well, Vance is out patrolling the hallway-"

"For victims," Gibbs finished, rolling his eyes. "I know. I'm not here for Vance, I need to see Ziva David's paperwork, please."

She got to work digging through the massive file cabinet behind her desk. "She's the scary, arrogant one who goes around with the handsome boy, right?"

Gibbs smirked at such a candid description. "Yep."

She nodded. "She's been in here a lot, and this is only my second day here." She handed Gibbs the folder. "By the way, if you happen to see that boy, the annoying, good-looking one, Vance needs to see him. He evaded me yesterday. I can't afford to lose him again."

Gibbs snorted and busily began sifting through the papers. "That's DiNozzo. He could talk his way out of a paper bag."

After a minute of silence, the red-head spoke. "I'm sorry, but I'm terrible with names. What was-"

Gibbs sighed in relief. He wasn't the only one who had a tough time with names.

"Leroy Jethro Gibbs," he said, quickly scribbling in his contact information in Ziva's emergency contact box.

She nodded, smirking a little. "And I'm Jenny Shepard. Your name's actually Jethro?"

"Apparently," Gibbs responded dryly. Jenny's smirk was a bit more pronounced this time.

"Well, _Jethro_, it's nice meeting you. Can I ask what you're doing with Ziva David's file?"

"Nope," 'Jethro' said. "That's classified."

Actually, that was the truth, but Jenny took it as a joke, rolling her eyes.

"Well, thank you for the pointers yesterday." At Gibbs' blank stare, she raised her eyebrows. "You know, about the coffee."

Gibbs shrugged. "Would've done the same for anyone."

She smirked. "Well, I appreciate the gesture. Anything else I can do for you?"

Gibbs considered. "No. I'm good. See you at lunch?"

"Right next to the coffee maker," she assured him.

...

Tony DiNozzo was trying to figure out how to wrangle a second day into the showing-new-student-around deal he'd struck with Ziva for a number of reasons.

First of all, there was Layne, who had texted him 23 times last night, asking him where he was, what he was doing, and if she could come, too, each message progressively more frantic than the last.

Then there was an added bonus in that Ziva knew just about everything there was to know about math, and had pretty much completed his homework for him last night.

Lastly, there the fact that he was starting to genuinely like the kid. Sure, she threatened him and teased him and ate his donuts, then made him pay for them, and he was pretty sure that she hated him. But her reactions were so damn funny!

At any rate, he jogged after the slim Israeli as she navigated the crowded hallways. When she stopped at her locker and found him at her side, she sighed, but did not look particularly surprised.

"Just one more day," she informed him exasperatedly, handing him her bag and opening her locker.

"Sure," Tony agreed obediently, wondering how long he'd be able to get away with this before she knifed him.

"And you will buy me a donut again tomorrow?" she prompted, loading a stack of notebooks into the bag.

Tony made a face. "Well, let's not get greedy . . ."

He didn't get to finish protesting, because Ziva had already started down the hallway, leaving him with her full - and heavy! - backpack.

"Hey!" He jogged after her. "I never said I'd carry your books for you!"

She cupped a hand to her ear, like he had the day before, and kept walking. Sighing, Tony shouldered the backpack and hurried after her. He supposed it could be worse . . . at least the bag wasn't pink.

**What do you think? Let me know. Got any plot ideas? **

**Updates are gonna start slowing down, because I'm going back to school. Between homework and an actual life, I don't know what my schedule will be like. If you leave me a bright, shiny review, I might put some extra effort into making time for my writing! :-) Actually, I'll write anyway, because I like it. But that doesn't mean that I don't encourage reviewers!**


	9. Chapter 9

**I've got a one word excuse for not updating, and it's fairly valid. School. So please don't kill me. I apologize, but I've been dead exhausted, and I haven't had time to do anything productive, other than eat, sleep, and watch the occasional NCIS episode. But I'm updating now, aren't I? Enough reviews might persuade me to update again tomorrow.**

**Disclaimer - I'm too tired to own NCIS**

Abby looked at the bulletin board, a melting pot of emotions ranging from hurt to outright indignance swimming in her green eyes, and put her hands on her hips defiantly.

"Timothy McGee!"

Tim turned to his friend cautiously. You never knew what to expect with Abby. This was both scary and exhilarating, kind of like riding a roller coaster in pitch blackness. You never knew whether you were going to go up or down, but either way you knew it'd be a thrill rush.

Now, surprisingly, Abby looked relatively calm.

"Yeah, Abs?" he ventured cautiously. Calm or not, the freshman had not removed her hands from her hips, nor had she gone to the office to call home for a change of clothes, as the new addition to the bulletin board instructed.

ATTENTION, STUDENTS!

GIVEN SOME RECENT BREACHES OF APPROPRIATE OUTFITTING, A NEW DRESS CODE HAS NOW BEEN INSTALLED AND WILL BE ENFORCED.

-SKIRTS (AND 'SKORTS') ARE REQUIRED TO BE AT LEAST TO MID-THIGH IN LENGTH.

-PLEASE, NO T-SHIRTS WITH SLOGANS.

-NO ACCESSORIES THAT COULD BE USED AS A POTENTIAL WEAPON (I.E. - SPIKES, ETC)

ALL BREACHES OF DRESS CODE WILL RESULT IN DETENTION, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.

IF YOU FIND YOUR OWN OUTFIT TO BE IN VIOLATION OF THE ABOVE, PLEASE REPORT TO THE OFFICE TO CALL HOME FOR A CHANGE OF CLOTHES.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

Abby sniffed. "I don't know why he's thanking me for my cooperation, since I don't plan on cooperating."

"You . . . don't?" Tim repeated. "But Abby-"

A couple more people joined them at the bulletin board, including Ziva, who had not sat with Abby, Palmer, and Tim the day before, leading to much speculation on Abby's part.

Either, the Goth had concluded, Ziva was involved in some elaborate plot which had somehow involved Area 51, as well as a corrupted government that wanted to turn free-thinkers (such as herself) into stereotypical drones with not an original thought in their heads, or the Israeli girl was dating DiNozzo.

Sure enough, behind Ziva was the good-looking idiot that Tim so strongly disliked, making Option 2 the more likely, much to Abby's obvious disappointment.

"No accessories that could be used as a potential weapon," Tony read out-loud, then turned to smirk at Ziva. "So that rules out just about everything, huh?"

"Just about," Ziva agreed.

"Well I think it's ridiculous," Abby said flatly, stamping her potential weaponry of a boot to emphasize her utter irritation.

DiNozzo looked Abby over lazily, then grinned at her in a way that Tim did not like. "You're Abby, right?"

She nodded and smiled. "And you're DiNozzo."

He grinned. "Guilty as charged. Nice boots."

Tim looked at the senior sharply, but he seemed to be relatively sincere. Even so, he took a step toward Abby, who smiled ruefully.

"Vance doesn't seem to agree."

He waved this off. "Eh, Vance doesn't like anyone or anything. Heck, he doesn't even like _me_!"

"Astonishing," Ziva murmured, rolling her eyes. Tony turned briefly to shoot her a look, then turned back to Abby.

"So are you going to do what it says?"

She snorted, making her bangs flutter. "No. I don't know _what_ I'm going to do, but-"

The bell rang, and people began moving down the hall. Tony grinned. "Well good luck. C'mon, Zi. Wouldn't want you to get lost, huh?"

She sighed. "No, Tony. We would not want that."

...

Gibbs was in the middle of teaching freshman gym when his cell phone buzzed in the pocket of the ugly sweats he was required to wear, in order to fit in with the 'gym teacher' story. It might have just been his least favorite thing about the job, excepting Vance, of course, as well as the fact that he had to teach lazy, obnoxious kids how to play sports.

He'd been leaning against the wall, watching what was supposed to be a 'soccer game.' About five kids per team were either athletic or grade-conscious enough to actually try. The rest of the kids were standing in little clusters, talking and screaming whenever the ball came near them.

One of the kids actually playing, and playing well, he noticed, was in complete violation of dress code. The blonde girl, whose hair was tied up in high pigtails, was wearing red and black plaid pajama pants, a huge baggy white t-shirt advertising Frank's Franks, ripped and cut until it no longer resembled anything close to a shirt, over a tight black tank top dotted with tiny white skulls, and combat boots. Gibbs winked at the girl as she ran by. She beamed back innocently.

"Aw, we got _freshman gym_?" a voice lamented loudly. From the mere tone of total obnoxiousness with which the statement was delivered, Gibbs knew it was DiNozzo.

"You're fifteen minutes late, DiNozzo!" he called, glaring at the kid. He shrugged, stopped to wink at a giggly blond freshman, then jogged over, an irritated Ziva on his heels.

"Not actually my fault, sir," he said with a smirk that made Gibbs want to strangle the kid. "See, 'cause-"

"Don't call me sir," Gibbs snapped before he could help himself. Tony grinned.

"You da boss, man. Whatever you say. Anyway, Jordan Saunders tried to talk to Ziva - he's the one she beat up on the first day of school - and it took a couple of extra minutes to get here, because we were hiding in the janitor's closet, and-"

"You beat the kid up for _talking _to you?" Gibbs demanded incredulously, turning to fix Ziva in open-mouthed exasperation.

Tony shifted uncomfortably. "Well, you know, he didn't actually _say _anything, he just-"

Ziva shrugged, not looking the least bit embarrassed. "I simply removed his hands from me . . . forcibly."

"Only one of his friends was with him, and he took a swing at her, and then" - Tony broke off, looking confused - "I don't actually know how I got involved, but we ended up running from a couple of teachers, and-"

Gibbs held up a hand, effectively muting the disastrous duo. "Stop talking. Please."

"Anyway," Tony said cheerfully, "why do we have freshman gym?"

"Miss Trenton insisted that she couldn't stand another year with you," Gibbs explained. "So you got stuck with the freshies."

"And me?" Ziva asked.

Gibbs shrugged. "I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on you, David. Now, please, get the hell away from me before I remember I'm supposed to report you."

"Got it." Tony grinned and ran into the midst of the less-than-heated battle, stealing the ball away from a pimply boy with large ears, and immediately shooting the ball past the goalie, who was on her phone. Ziva followed more slowly, rolling her eyes when Tony went into a fairly accurate imitation of the World Cup commentators.

"Gooooooooooooooal!"

"DiNozzo!"

He looked up with that irritatingly charming grin. "Boss-man?"

"Shut up."

The game continued, and Gibbs took the opportunity to check the text that had buzzed in right before DiNozzo and David had interrupted. It was from Franks.

_M - Probie, who's the substitute secretary?_

Surprised, Gibbs answered.

_**G - Jennifer Shepard. Young, red-head. Why?**_

_M - Inez Willower, secretary she's subbing in for, was found dead this morning, at least 3 days._

It took Gibbs a minute to absorb this, and what it most likely meant.

_**G - You think Shepard's got something to do with the death?**_

_M - Would give her the means to access David, wouldn't it? _

_**G - You gonna bring her in?**_

_M - not 'til we got ourselves a bit more to go on. For now, just keep an eye on her, ok?_

**Whoa. We've got an actual plot now, as well as a lovely little humorous subplot for our dear friend, Abby. I've got a Jeanne-reminiscent ****Jibbs subplot in mind as well, if you catch my drift. I've also got a Tony-centric subplot that I might introduce next chapter, and then things will start getting . . . interesting. What say you, reader, dear?**

**I say review. So do it. **_  
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	10. Chapter 10

**I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't apologize enough. I've got nothing to say for myself, except to offer lame excuses. Shall I try to explain myself? Sure, why not.**

**This is the longest I have ever gone without posting, and for that I apologize. I'm a little bit traumatized over it. But you have no idea how crazy my life's been. I've been frickin' exhausted, between school and school and, well, school. **

**So that's all I can say. I'm writing as fast as I can. Updates will follow, I swear. It's a proven fact that I update faster when I get more reviews, which is a very subtle hint in your general direction, if you can see what I mean . . . So this has got some establishment in a very exciting Abby subplot, some Tony/Ziva friendship, and the beginning of my Jibbs. I'm pretty happy with it. What doth y'all thinketh?**

**Disclaimer - I don't even want to own a high school at this point. Just attending one is draining enough, as is** . . .

Abby banged her fist down against the cafe table triumphantly, causing the silverware to rattle and several diners to shoot questioning looks in her general direction. The pretty blond did not even have the grace to blush.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed triumphantly, pumping her fist in the air with as much enthusiasm as any of the cast of Jersey Shore.

The girl sitting across the table from Abby flinched despite herself. "So, um, that was helpful?" she ventured dryly.

Abby grinned at the petite Asian sophomore. "You have no idea. You officially rock, Michelle. Who says the debate team is a bunch of wannabe lawyers, huh?"

Michelle frowned. "People say that?"

Abby shrugged. "I'm sure they didn't mean you personally, Michelle, because you are cool and have possibly just saved my life."

Michelle shifted in her seat a bit. "Thanks . . . I think. So why was this stuff necessary anyway?"

Abby grinned. "That's for me to know and the rest of the world to find out. Just wait until Monday."

Michelle smiled at the freshman girl. "I'll be waiting," she promised, "believe me."

Abby didn't answer. She was peering at Michelle in a way that made the captain of the debate team a bit self-conscious. She wondered if there was something in between her teeth.

"Is something wrong?" she asked finally, when Abby continued to be unresponsive to Michelle's subtle clearings of the throat.

"I was just thinking . . ." Abby said slowly, "that guys seem to have a thing for dark-haired girls. I mean, Jeff with Shannon, Mark with Maria, Prince Charming with Snow white, Palmer with you, Tony with Ziva . . ."

Michelle blinked. "Wait. _Who_ with me?"

Abby waved her aside casually. "Oh, Jimmy Palmer. He's a freshman and he's really cute." She wrinkled her nose. "Well, in a nerdy kind of way. Anyway, he's got some huge crush on you, only he hasn't actually talked to you, but apparently he stepped on your bag of Doritos yesterday, and now he's scared to talk to you, only you really should talk to him, because he's a sweet guy." The Goth stopped to take a breath at last. "You know, in a nerdy kind of way."

Michelle was a little too stunned to absorb any of this, so she just nodded. "Oh."

Abby thought about this, cocking her head and making her pigtails swing. "Do you think Timmy likes dark hair?" she questioned abruptly.

Michelle blinked. "Um, I don't know, Abby, but I'm pretty sure he likes you already."

Abby thought for another second before gulping her drink and shrugging. "Whatever. I've got more important things to worry about right now."

...

"We're not dating."

Ziva did not look up from where she was sprawled on the bed doing her geometry homework. "Good, Tony," she said calmly, "you are finally beginning to develop social skills. Now if only we could teach you how to knock . . ."

"The door was open!" he protested, flopping down beside her on the queen mattress and looking around. "And I was just saying, 'cause one of my friends-"

"One of your idiot friends, you mean?" Ziva smirked.

"Yeah. Them. They were talking about the Halloween dance, and-"

"Your friends talk about dances?" Ziva interrupted again. "I thought only girls did that."

Tony laughed. "So did I, actually. But, remember, these are idiots we're talking about. We can't set our expectations too high."

Ziva snorted and returned to her homework. Tony watched her work for all of three seconds before getting bored and seeking out further entertainment.

Wow. Your room is really bare," he commented finally, studying the blank walls and the neat, sparse layout critically.

"I have only just moved in," Ziva explained, not bothering to look around. "There has not been much time for decorating."

"Yeah, well maybe you'd have some time if you didn't spend your Friday nights doing homework," Tony suggested, shaking his head in disgust at Ziva's pile of notebooks. "Geez. You're pretty nerdy for a ninja."

"Ninjas are from Japan, are they not?" Ziva slapped Tony's hand away when he tried to steal her notebook. "I am-"

"Canadian," Tony supplied with a grin. "A lifeless Canadian loser. Come on, CaNERDian, we're going out."

"Out where?" she asked patiently, not moving. "I thought that we were not dating?"

"We're not," Tony assured her cheerfully, "but I'm bored, and my friends are idiots."

"Then why are they your friends?" she asked, pretending to be irritated, but packing her books away all the same.

Tony shrugged. "Why do I hang out with you?"

Ziva grinned wickedly. "Because you get your pick-up lines from that boy who is stalking me."

Tony grinned and led Ziva to the door. "Jordan? Please. His pick-up lines suck. Mine are a million times better.

As the teens thundered down the stairs, Tony remembered something. "He texted me today. I swear, it's the greatest piece of hate-mail I've ever gotten in my entire life, and believe it or not, I've gotten a decent amount."

"Astonishing," Ziva murmured. "Mostly from females, I presume."

"Pfft. No! Well, yeah," he admitted ruefully.

Ziva grinned. "May I read it?"

"In the car," promised Tony. "Come on, or we're gonna be late."

"Late for where, exactly?" Ziva asked, locking the door behind her as they stepped outside into the cool autumn evening.

"You, Canadian," Tony announced grandly, sweeping open the passenger-side door with an overly-dramatic flourish, "are about to be exposed to your first American party. Prepare to have your mind blown."

...

Gibbs was doing some major thinking.

The house was quiet and beginning to darken. Ziva had gone out somewhere with that DiNozzo kid she refused to call her friend about half an hour earlier, and he had no idea when she would return.

She had not, as a dutiful daughter would have done, promised to call and check in, nor had she even informed him of where she was going. Ziva was not exactly the domestic type.

But, then again, neither was Gibbs. So he had resorted to science-y methods, imbedding a tiny GPS tracker in Ziva's favorite knife, which he knew she would never go anywhere without.

This way, they were both happy. Minimal conversation, and Gibbs didn't get fired. It wasn't exactly a compromise, but it worked.

Now, Gibbs was sipping coffee and poring over the details of dear Ziva's predicament.

The intruder who had been shot in the yard had been identified as Aaron Rafaad, a twenty-eight-year-old gun-for-hire, whose last known residence had been in Israel.

While no fingers had been pointed yet, it was rather obvious who had hired Aaron. Eli David was not the tie-wearing, bespectacled father of fiction who drank coffee from a mug as he read the newspaper each morning, that was for sure.

The secretary, Barbara Newcomb, was a overweight woman of forty-six with beady eyes and a deep-rooted dislike for gym teachers who did not believe in knocking. She had met her demise early Thursday morning, the ME had pronounced, which followed with Vance's statement.

Newcomb had called in sick on the first day of school, that Wednesday. She had not arrived on Thursday either, but this time she had failed to call in sick. The postman had found her earlier today, Friday, when ringing the doorbell with a package, which turned out to contain cat food. This was not a surprise, given the eleven cats that had served as Newcomb's companions.

Newcomb had been killed with a single shot to the head from behind. Surface burns suggested the shot was made at close range, and silenced with a couch cushion, which lay in tattered pieces on the living room rug.

The evidence had been contaminated, in the most literal of senses. Everything was coated in a fine layer of cat hair. There were several interesting stains on the rug, some blood, others cat urine. Lovely.

Suspicions right now lay on the attractive red head whom Gibbs had briefly conversed with over coffee in the break room. She had been one of the first to see Miss David, and had had access to the girl's records. She would benefit from the death of the secretary, giving her both a permanent job and a way to get closer to Ziva.

After a while, Gibbs came to a conclusion, putting down his papers and picking up his cell phone. If Franks wanted him to get close . . .

"Hello?"

Gibbs cleared his throat. "Hey. Jenny?"

"Yes?"

"This is Gibbs, the gym-"

"Hey there, _Jethro_. What's up?"

Gibbs smiled despite himself. "I was wondering if you were doing anything tonight?"

**Yay! Some Jibbs in the making, a guest appearance by Michelle Lee (let's hear it for the debate team!) and Tony and Ziva are going partying, which I think will be soooo much fun to write. What do you guys think? If I get enough reviews, I might be able to squeeze in an update tomorrow!**


	11. Chapter 11

**My bad luck has become your good luck. So you can at least be happy about that . . . Today was my first school dance. And I got sick at lunch today. So now I'm stuck home with the stomach flu while my friends go out and dance the night away. Which stinks. **

**The bright side? I don't have to freak out over what I'm going to wear (which would have been a disastrous and LOUD freak out, had things gone as planned) and you get your update a day earlier. So read, review, and think of me, all by my little lonesome. Drinking hot chocolate in September. Sniffle, sniffle. **

**Disclaimer - The disclaimer has no pity. I explained my predicament, showed him/her/it (?) the shoes I had picked out for the occasion, even tried to bribe him/her/it with hot chocolate. No such luck. **

"This is awful," Ziva declared suddenly, plunking down her soda onto the coffee table with a decided bang. Tony cringed.

"I know. Sorry. This is not making a good first impression on behalf of American partiers, is it?"

Ziva smiled slightly. "I meant the pizza."

"Well, the pizza's awful, too," Tony agreed, eyeing his own greasy, semi-congealed slice of extra-cheese pizza in distaste. "Again. My apologies."

The two were squeezed into the corner of the couch with their slices of bad pizza. The house was crowded and messy, and the music was so loud that it was practically shaking the home's foundations.

"You can go talk with people, you know," Ziva said after a minute, as Tony waved away yet another girl's beckons.

"And leave you here by yourself?" Tony snorted. "I don't think so."

"I probably would not be by myself for very long," Ziva disagreed, raising an eyebrow at a nearby boy who was leering unabashedly. She shot him a grin that was part flirtatious, part menacing - both terrifying and a total turn-on. Tony shook his head.

"That's what I'm afraid of. These are idiots, Ziva, remember?" Ziva transferred her dangerous smile to Tony. He sighed. "_Drunken_ idiots," he stressed. She rolled her eyes and smiled normally.

"I am joking, Tony. If any of them come near me, I will slit their throats." She patted the knife Tony knew was secreted at her waist fondly.

"Yet another reason why I can't leave you alone," he concluded pointedly. Suddenly he brightened with a malicious snicker. "Hey, look! It's Jordan!"

Ziva looked up just in time for a decidedly tipsy Jordan to catch her eye. The linebacker's jaw set determinedly, and he strode across the room purposefully, though a bit crookedly. Tony winced. "Damn. He's coming over here."

Ziva's hand slid subtly to her hip. Tony elbowed her in the side and stood as Jordan approached. "Do not use excessive force unless absolutely necessary," he cautioned, only partly joking.

Ziva shot him an innocent look, standing as well. "Excessive force?"

Jordan wasn't looking so good. His eyes were bloodshot and framed in the fading purple of a bruise, making him look like a raccoon with pink eye. Nonetheless, he flashed Ziva the confident smile that, usually, worked like a charm.

Ziva, for obvious reasons, such as the fact that the raccoon eyes were her own doing, was unimpressed. Her hand lingered at her waist.

"Hey, Jordan," Tony said casually, trying to gauge how drunk his fellow senior actually was. "You're looking good."

Jordan ignored Tony and grinned at Ziva. "You're Xena, right?" he slurred.

Ziva groaned as Tony laughed aloud. Jordan turned to Tony suspiciously at the sound of laughter, frowning. "You laughing at me, DiNozzo?" the linebacker demanded threateningly.

Tony looked at Ziva. She smiled back at him, teeth white and bared in anticipation. Unlike most people, she did not like she was preparing to throw herself between the two, should things come to blows. In fact, he could see her fingers flexing and forming into fists.

"Well, yes, actually," he said cheerfully, "I was."

Ziva smiled her hot-and-dangerous smile and had Jordan on the ground before he could throw a single punch.

...

Tim McGee never had high expectations for his Friday nights, and tonight was no different. He'd had an exciting agenda lined up, comprised of Call of Duty and the baseball game, when his phone emitted a peculiar series of bleeps and bloops that he'd assigned as Abby's personal ringtone.

The soundtrack had been entitled 'Energetic.' Tim couldn't agree more...

_A - Hey, Tim! Guess what, guess what, guess whaaaaat?_

Tim smiled despite himself and saved his Call of Duty game.

_**T - Hey, Abs. What's up? **_

_A - You're supposed to guess. That's why I said 'guess what, guess what, guess whaaaaat.'_

_**T - OH. Um . . . Did you . . . win a million dollars?**_

_A - Original . . . but no. Better than that!_

Tim had to consider this. What was better than a million dollars? Like, for Abby?

_**T - Did you . . . discover some new species of ameba living in your lipstick or something?**_

He wasn't ruling it out, honestly. Abby used this all-natural, organic line of cosmetics, which boasted on its environmentally-friendly production.

_A - That . . . would be really gross. And awesome. Oh, geez, now I need to go decontaminate my lips!_

_**T - So, that's not your news?**_

_A - Not yet, anyway. I'm getting out my test tubes as we speak . . . er, text. Because we're not actually speaking, we're just communicating. _

Tim waited patiently for a minute then, satisfied that Abby wasn't going to interrupt him with another rapid-fire text, he typed one back.

_**T - So what IS your news?**_

_A - Well, first of all, hand sanitizer tastes nasty, and I would not advise using it as a decontaminate for your lips._

Tim laughed aloud, earning an eyebrow raise and a series of kissy-faces from Sarah, who was curled up on the couch with one of her notebooks and a pen. He made a face back at his sister and thundered upstairs. Middle-schoolers...

_**T - And?**_

_A - Aaaaaand . . . there is an unidentified organic substance growing in the chemical compound of my lipstick. _

Ew. That was disturbing.

_**T - Your news, Abs?**_

_A - Oh, right! Well . . . drum roll, please!_

_**T - *drum rolls***_

_A - 'Drum roll' is not a verb. Noted. . . . Anyhow, so I was talking to Michelle Lee, Palmer's secret-crush-who-knows-now-that-he-likes-her-thanks-to-me, and she did some schmancy nerdy research for me. And guess what?..._

_**T - You're really milking this, huh?**_

_A - For all it's worth, Timmy-boy __ Now guess._

_**T - Did you . . . I don't know, Abs! Just tell me already!**_

_A - Weeeeellll . . . let's just say that we're gonna need ourselves a lawyer, Tim. And some hair-dye._

Tim groaned out loud.

...

Gibbs, for some reason, was feeling uncomfortable. It wasn't like the cafe was too formal, and he wasn't in anything dressy enough to be itchy, but he was definitely feeling out of sorts.

Conversation had never been his strong point, unless the other member of the discourse was a suspect in a murder investigation . . . Or the coffee barista. But on a date? With a possible suspect in a gruesome murder? Gibbs was lost.

Across the cafe table, Jenny Shepard was sipping her coffee. The two met eyes awkwardly, and the silence became further pronounced. Gibbs cleared his throat. "So . . ."

Jenny smirked. "Lovely weather we've been having, huh?" she remarked in a sarcastically airy tone of voice. Gibbs smirked back.

"Just spectacular. How's your mother?"

Jenny laughed. "Fantastic. Just great. What about your dog? How's he doing? What was its name again?"

Gibbs thought for a second. "Which one?"

Jenny raised an eyebrow, unsure if her date was serious or not. "How many do you have?"

Gibbs' face was solemn when he answered. "Seventeen."

She laughed aloud. "Well, in the case, I meant Pookie, the little yappy one. How's he doing?"

He sipped some coffee. "Pookie's dead."

"I'm sorry." Jenny feigned concern. "How did he die?"

Gibbs didn't even have to think about it. "He was lynched," he replied promptly, "by the rest of my dogs. They found out he was gay."

This was too much for Jenny, who snorted so violently that several nearby diners turned questioningly. Embarrassed, she hunched low over her coffee and attempted to smother her laughter.

"That's . . . tragic," she answered finally, still chuckling a bit. "I'm sorry for your loss."

Gibbs shrugged. "Well, I've got my booze and my dogs. I manage."

"Sounds fantastic," Jenny remarked dryly, signaling over a waitress for more coffee. Gibbs smiled a little bit.

"It's not too bad. What about you?"

"I'm sharing an apartment downtown with four of my college girlfriends," Jenny said with an expressive grimace. "I'd prefer the dogs at this point, let me tell you."

Gibbs nodded. "Must be pretty crowded."

She pulled another face. "Very. Especially," she added, eyes laughing wickedly, "with my twenty-six cats."

The conversation continued long after the coffee was finished, a curious mixture of sarcastic make-believe and information exchange. Gibbs learned that Jenny was 27, was well-educated in politics, and took her coffee black.

In essence, he'd gotten nothing of relevance to the case, and he thought he might have enjoyed himself a bit too much.

But he didn't pause for a second when, as they parted ways in the parking lot, Jenny smiled and asked, "See you tomorrow?"

"You bet," he promised. And he grinned.

**Awwwwww. Cutesy face time! That's the most Jibb-y thing I've ever written in my entire life. Now I need opinions. Should I continue to delve into the world of Jibberish (I'm so funny)? Good? Bad? Mediocre? (Whipped out a vocab word there for ya)  
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**Oh, and what about the Tiva party scene? I had no idea where I was going with it, but I had fun. I rewrote once or twice or seven million times, and that's what I got. So deal. **

**Review, please? 'Cause now I'm stuck at home babysitting my sibs. With hot chocolate and the stomach flu. So take pity on me and drop me a line or four? Maybe? **


	12. Chapter 12

**I'm trying to add more of an element of team-friendship. Thus, we have a lovely little scene at the bottom. I don't like it as much as I like the beginning of this scene, but whatever. I tend to like Tiva the best of my ships anyway. No Jibbs here, but I'll put some in the next scene if I can. **

**Disclaimer - la la la la la la sing a happy song! . . . **

"Do we _have_ to?" Tony whined, feeling like one of those perpetually-whiney toddlers who persisted in hanging around the supermarket.

"Yes," Ziva said firmly, putting her combat boots up on the dashboard and stretching, cat-like, until her back cracked. Tony winced.

"Oy. Feet off my baby's dash." When Ziva did not immediately remove her boots, he reached over, grabbed her legs, and forcibly put her feet back on the floor. "Remind me again why I have to take you home? It's only 8 at night!"

"Because," she answered patiently, "there is blood on my shirt. And in my hair. I want it out before it dries."

"Bloody shirts are sexy!" Tony protested. Ziva fixed him with a look.

"If you ever associate the word 'sexy' with me again, I will be forced to take action," she purred at him with that dangerous flirtation he was growing to fearfully anticipate.

"What're you gonna do?" He snorted derisively. "Become a nun?"

She smirked. "I do not think the sisters will accept me after what I have planned for you."

Tony grinned. "Hot," he teased. When she merely rolled her eyes and subtly moved her feet back onto the dashboard, he sighed. "Seriously. The movie theater's dark! No one would see-"

"If the blood dries, Tony," Ziva said with strained patience, "it will destroy my hair. I do not want that to happen."

"You're such a girl," he lamented, turning on the car and pulling onto the road. "Fine. I'll take you home. But we're getting McDonald's first."

...

Tony was just finishing up his cheeseburger when a thought came to mind that made him mutter some choice curse words aloud.

"What is wrong?" Ziva asked, pawing through the grease-stained bag that sat between the two seats for a napkin.

"I just realized that I'm going to have to explain to Gibbs exactly why I'm bringing you home bloodied," he announced, gut clenching with dread.

"I do not see what the problem is." Ziva shrugged and swiped a French fry from the box, which had somehow ended up on Tony's lap even though they'd agreed to split.

Tony snorted. "What am I going to say? 'Hi, Federal Agent Gibbs. How are you? Yeah, your babysitting charge and I went out partying, antagonized a drunken football player, and now she's got a split lip. That's a nice gun you've got held to my head...'"

Ziva shrugged again. "That sounds about right."

He groaned. "I'm dead."

"You will die a much slower, more painful death if this blood wrecks my hair," she warned him, "so I would advise you to reassess your priorities."

Tony went over his options. He could get killed by a federal agent - this would be unpleasant, but at least he'd go out with a bang - or he could get tortured and murdered by a sixteen-year-old _girl_, who couldn't weigh much more than 120 pounds.

The choice was obvious, but didn't make it any more pleasant.

"What if we stopped at my house, and I let you take one of my dad's other cars home?" he suggested weakly. Ziva raised an eyebrow.

"Your father has more than one car?"

"He has like five," Tony answered somewhat bitterly. "And he's not home, so it really wouldn't be a problem."

"Yes."

He raised an eyebrow, yanked Ziva's feet down from the windshield, and asked, "Yes, what?"

"Yes, it would be a problem" - she raised her own eyebrows, daring him to mock her - "because I cannot drive."

Immediately, Tony laughed, if only to be contrary, as was his formidable reputation. "What? The Canadian James Bond can't drive? How do you get into epic car chases if you can't drive, Ziva?"

She glared at him and tore an innocent French fry to bits before devouring it with unnecessary violence. He gulped and quickly amended his statement.

"Um, I was just saying that maybe I could teach you? You know, so you're not stuck in Driver's Ed. with a bunch of perverted sophomores?"

Ziva was taken aback. "I . . . That would be helpful," she agreed finally. "Now, _please_, take me home before my hair-"

"Okay, okay!" Tony interrupted, throwing his hands up in mock exasperation. "Geez! You're as bad as a cheerleader!"

Ziva's eyes narrowed. This was an extreme offense, and not one that could go unavenged.

"Ow! Ziva! We've talked about this - no pinching, punching, elbowing, kicking, stabbing or maiming the driver!" Tony protested, nearly missing the turn as he massaged his wounded ribcage dramatically.

"Take it back!" Ziva ordered, holding a particularly crispy French fry to Tony's jugular threateningly. It was all of three seconds before he caved.

"Okay! Okay! Sorry!"

Satisfied, Ziva sat back, bit the tip off her deep-fried weapon, and put her feet back up on the dashboard.

Tony groaned. "Remind me why I hang out with you...?"

Ziva had to think about this for a second. As they turned onto her road, she grinned. "Because I look sexy in my bloodied shirt?" she offered.

Tony chuckled. "Okay, I'll give you that one. So are you sure you don't just want to turn around and hit the movi-" He broke off at the look on Ziva's face. "No?"

"No," she confirmed, crossing her arms. So Tony took a deep breath, steeling himself, and shoved a handful of French fries into his mouth, to be used as weapons should the need arise.

"It is your happy day," Ziva said, a bit disappointedly, as the Mustang pulled up in front of her house. "I do not think that Gibbs is here."

"The term is 'lucky day,'" Tony informed her after doing a mini-victory dance in the driver's seat. "So does that mean you're not grounded?"

"He would not have grounded me," Ziva scoffed. "He is not in charge."

"Awesome," he enthused, "so hurry up and shower and we can still hit the movies!"

Ziva made a face. "Do we have t-"

"Lots of blood," Tony promised quickly. "Blood and guts and epic slow-mo gunfights."

She caved. "Alright. I will go shower. You can come inside if you promise not to break anything."

"I'll wait out here," Tony decided. "Just in case Gibbs is hiding out inside with a power tool."

Ziva smirked. "Gibbs does not use power tools. Apparently he harbors some grudge against them. He locked himself up in the basement for hours yesterday with some plywood and a hammer," she paused, then added thoughtfully, "and a lot of alcohol."

He shuddered. "Scary guy. Well, I'll be out here. Shower fast."

...

Tim was walking towards Abby's house in the dim evening when a tornado of spiked boots and blonde pigtails nearly knocked him off his feet. "Timmy!"

He caught himself against a nearby mailbox and managed to pat his attacker's back feebly as she hugged him fiercely. "Hey, Abs. I was on my way over. You didn't have to come meet me-"

Abby waved him off. "I was too excited to stand still, so my mom sent me off to go on a power-walk until the caffeine wore off. Come with me?"

It was kind of cold, and Tim was not much for exercise, but Abby's green puppy-dog eyes were hard to resist. "Sure," he agreed.

"Yay!" Abby gave him another hug before seizing his hand and tearing off.

"This is a power-walk?" Tim yelped, trying desperately to keep up with the flying ponytails. Abby paused long enough to slap him forcibly on the back. Tim staggered and only just refrained from toppling spectacularly.

"You'll get used to it," Abby said optimistically.

Tim doubted it. He took advantage of Abby's brief stop to double over and wheeze out a couple of deep breaths. His pulse was thumping in his temple, which was glistening with sweat.

"Ready?" Abby bounced up and down impatiently. "Come on, Tim, I've got half a gallon of coffee to work- Hey, look, it's Tony!"

Tim groaned aloud. He did _not_ want to talk to Tony DiNozzo right now.

"I didn't know he lived around here," Abby babbled. "Come on, let's go say hi!"

Tim didn't have enough breath to object. Even if he had, Abby was already streaking away, like a caffeine-powered missile in a red mini-skirt. Slowly, his every muscle protesting violently, he followed.

"Hey, McZumba," DiNozzo greeted him cheerfully. "What's shakin'?"

"Tim and I were going for a power-walk," Abby explained cheerfully, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. Tony grinned at her.

"That must've been quite the power-walk if you got little Timmy looking like this."

Abby frowned and squeezed Tim's hand protectively. "It was. So what are you doing here? I thought you lived on the schmancy side of town."

Tony smirked and gestured to the house he was parked in front of. "Waiting for the princess while she primps-"

"I do not primp," Ziva snapped, yanking open the passenger door and flouncing into her seat. She shot Tony a glare, then turned to smile at Abby and Tim. "Hello, Abby, McGee."

"Hi," Abby chirped. "So guess what? I did some research - well, actually, Michelle Lee did some research."

"Michelle . . . Asian Michelle with the nice butt and the ugly slacks?" Tony mused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Ziva rolled her eyes. Abby nodded.

"The very same. And guess what she told me?"

"What?"

The three teenagers jumped as Abby stamped her spiky foot violently against the ground. "When I tell you to _guess_, I want you to, you know, _guess_! . . . Please."

"You won a million dollars?" Tony offered finally with a shrug. Tim smirked at the unoriginal response, which he knew Abby would not appreciate.

The Goth girl rolled her heavily made-up eyes accomplishedly. "No, actually, because the odds of winning a million dollars are surprisingly low. You're more likely to be hit by a car on your way to buy a lottery ticket than to actually win a substantial sum of money from the lottery. So guess again."

"You're adopting a pet platypus?" Tony suggested, reaching across the car to drain the soda in Ziva's hand. He merely winced when she smacked him on the thigh in retaliation. Abby giggled.

"Again. No. Okay, I'll just tell you, since your guessing skills stink. Michelle did some research on the new dress code, and she found a bunch of loopholes for me. Like, there's nothing abolishing hair dye, for instance."

Tony looked up Abby's devilish grin and laughed. "You're pretty devious for a blonde."

Abby shrugged. "I take no offense. I'm not going to be a blonde for long! Tim and I are going to walk to town and buy a thing of hair dye as soon as I power-walk off my caffeine jitters. Want to come?"

"Xena and I were going to see a movie," Tony answered, "but we could give you a ride, if you want. You could see the movie with us, too."

Abby nodded exuberantly. "That would be awesome! Only I don't want to mess up your date . . ."

"We're not dating," Ziva and Tony said simultaneously. Abby grinned knowingly and turned to Tim.

"They say they're not dating," she stage-whispered with an over-exaggerated wink. McGee grinned despite himself.

"Gee, really?" he whisper-screamed back.

"Ha, ha, ha, very funny," DiNozzo said flatly. "Now get in the car if you're coming or I'll set Ziva on you."

After exchanging looks, Tim and Abby did as they were told. DiNozzo was fun to mess with . . . but Ziva was a different story.

**Hurray for team friendship! **


	13. Chapter 13

**Okay, so we're jumping ahead about three weeks, because it's time to get this show on the road. We've got some team-friendship, some hints of Tiva, and a bit of Jibbs to keep you happy. Oh, and a cliffy ending because I'm not a nice person. I know some people wanted a little bit of Gibbs-Tony father/son bonding, so I'll try to incorporate that into a later chapter. Review, please?**

**Disclaimer - Bob the Builder! Can he fix it? Bob the Builder! Yes, he can!**

It was three weeks later, after the sixth date, an impromptu 'wanna grab dinner' rendezvous at a nearby pizza place, that Gibbs truly began to fear for the assignment.

He found himself liking this woman who ate three slices of extra-cheesy, anchovy pizza without batting an eyelash a great deal more than was strictly professional.

And that was bad, because when it came to undercover work, Leroy Jethro Gibbs had always reigned supreme.

Agent Gibbs, or so read the personal commendation from the Director of NCIS himself, had a great deal of self-possession which enabled him to trust his instincts and preserve a cover role.

The probie, or so said Mike Franks in an approving tone to his buddies at the bar after hours, was damned good at locking up his emotions and doing what had to be done.

Gibbs said he was just doing his job.

He remembered what falling in love felt like, on a bench in a train station with a little bit of fear in his gut and a faded bruise on his face. Shannon had looked him soberly in the eye and made him laugh with her straight-faced rules about lumberjacks.

This was different, though.

Jenny's eyes laughed wickedly as she related the conversation she'd overheard in the ladies' room last week about the AP Environmental Science teacher's not-so-secret crush on Vance.

He allowed himself to smile back and wondered if it was too late to back out.

Franks was not going to be happy about this.

...

"If this is just an excuse to touch me," Ziva warned, squirming under Tony's arms as he kicked open the door of the converted-barn and prodded her forward, "I am going to be very angry."

"You think too much of yourself," Tony told her, readjusting his hands over her eyes. "Okay. On three you can open your eyes. One, two . . . _three_!"

He jumped back, just in case Ziva tried to hurt him, and waited for a reaction, which came in the form of a blink.

Finally, she turned to look at him, putting her hands on her hips. "I thought you said your father was rich?"

He frowned. "Um, yeah."

She turned back to survey the somewhat battered Toyota Camry that sat center-stage in the garage. "Then why do you have-"

"It's for you, you idiot," Tony said cheerfully, striding forward as he unlocked the car. "This was my first car. Or, at least, in theory."

She crinkled her nose at him. "In theory?"

"Well it's not like I'm gonna drive this around when I can take the Porsche and Dad won't even know the difference," he protested, sweeping open the passenger-side door with a bow.

Ziva climbed into the car reluctantly, surveying the interior critically. "It is very nice," she allowed, "but I cannot just take it."

"I'll tell my dad I crashed it into a tree," Tony said, sliding into the driver's seat. "He won't care. Then he'll have to buy me a new car anywa-"

He broke off in surprise as Ziva leaned over to give him a brief hug. "Thank you."

Tony tried to wipe his look of shock off his face. "No problem."

"Now get out of the driver's seat," Ziva instructed, drawing back and opening the door. "I want to drive."

...

"They're late, McGee!" Abby announced irritably, tapping her honest-to-God pocket watch that was hanging off her chained belt like the white rabbit from _Alice in Wonderland. _

Tim shrugged. "DiNozzo's always late."

"But Ziva's not!" she countered, shaking her head and making her newly-dyed pigtails swing. "No. I refuse to believe that _Ziva_ is late."

Tim raised an eyebrow, daring to be sarcastic. "So what do you think happened? They got mugged?"

"I think you're forgetting that Ziva shot a man from her rooftop," Abby answered. "She doesn't get mugged."

He shook his head and grinned. "I think you're forgetting that Ziva's a kid, not a superhero-"

"Which is a shame," Tony interjected from directly behind them, "because I bet you'd look really good in Spandex, Zi."

Ziva, who stood next to DiNozzo with her arms crossed, grinned flirtatiously. "Given this some thought, have we, Tony?"

"Guys! You're late!" Abby declared. "What happened?"

"Ziva happened," Tony groaned, and Tim noticed that the older boy's face was tinged an unhealthy shade of green. Ziva shrugged and smacked Tony lightly on the cheek.

"You offered to teach me."

"That's what I get for trying to do something nice." Tony shook his head in disgust even as he grinned.

"Come on!" Abby bounced up and down on the balls. "The concert is starting in five minutes, and I do _not_ want to be late."

"Who are we seeing again?" Tony murmured to Ziva as they followed the excited girl down the park path towards the amphitheater where the band was warming up. A crowd had already began to form.

"I think it is 'Brain Shatter' or something." Ziva shrugged. "She was talking very fast on the phone. I did not really-"

"Sounds like Abby." Tim grinned.

"Thou shalt not speaketh the name of Abby in vain!" the Goth called back without turning around. "My parents may be deaf, but I'm not!"

Laughing guiltily, the three picked up the pace and caught up with their friend.

...

"I hate American music," Ziva said, loudly enough to be heard over the deafening music, but quietly enough to ensure that Abby did not hear.

"_What_?" Tony yelled, leaning towards her and cupping a hand to his hear.

"I said this is awful!"

Tony fervently nodded his agreement. "My brain is officially shattered!"

"_What_?"

"I asked if you wanted to go get a snack!"

This time it was Ziva's turn to nod eagerly. "Anything! Get me out of here!"

"_What_?"

"I said yes!"

"Great!" Tony grabbed Ziva's arm and the two awkwardly shuffled down the row, stepping over and around legs, backpacks, and overturned bags of popcorn. "We'll be right back!" he called to Abby, whose lip-reading skills enabled her to piece together what Tony was saying. She nodded her head and gave a thumbs-up as she bopped around to the cacophonous noise she called music.

McGee shot the two a facial SOS. Tony just shrugged, but Ziva shot the younger boy a sympathetic look. "Perhaps we should invite him to come, too?" she suggested.

Tony tightened his grip on her arm and walked faster. "Nah. He won't go. McLassie's too loyal to Abby. We'll buy him a soda and some earplugs."

"Where do we get earplugs?" she wanted to know. Tony grinned and gestured to a card table that had been assembled under a cluster of pine trees that lined the path. A large sign proclaimed that concert essentials such as snacks, t-shirts, and earplugs were on sale.

"Now that's enterprising. How much for three pairs of earplugs?"

The two guys behind the table grinned. "Two dollars and eighty cents. How'd you guys get roped into this?"

"Our friend," Ziva began to explain. The younger of the males, a shaggy-haired individual who was eyeing Ziva with a bit more interest than was strictly necessary, raised a hand.

"Say no more. In fact, we'll throw in the third pair for free."

Tony bit the inside of his cheek to hold back a snide comment and dug in his pocket for the money. He handed the guy a five and tried to disguise his impatience as he waited for his change.

The dude, who had to be at least 20, seemed to be in no hurry, leisurely counting out the change and grinning at Ziva all the while. "The name's Brad. You come to these often?"

She shook her head, looking mildly disinterested. "This is my first."

"And hopefully our last," Tony added, moving a step closer to his friend and accepting his change. "Thanks. Enjoy the music."

He shoved the small bag into the pocket of his hoodie and strode away, pulling Ziva by the arm until she irritably shook him loose. "Do we have to go back to the concert right away?" she whined.

Tony considered. The October evening was cool, but the floodlights and the full moon illuminated the winding trail that circled the park. From a distance, the din of the concert was no more than a background noise.

"Want to circle the park?" he offered. "We could go around once or twice and then head back. Maybe by then the music will have improved."

"I highly doubt that," Ziva smirked, teeth a flash of white in the dusky light, "but I do not mind going for a walk. I will text McGee and let him know that we will be back soon."

As they started off, the light from Ziva's phone making her skin glow like an alien's, a thought occurred to Tony. "You have the McGeek's number?"

"You do not?"

"No."

Ziva shrugged and slid her phone back into the pocket of her loose sweatshirt. "He says he will tell Abby for us, but he wants to know if we could drop off his earplugs first."

They had already gone a considerable distance, and the amphitheater's lights were little more than a distant blur. "We'll catch him on the next loop," he decided. "Come on. Race you to the stone bridge?"

...

Twenty minutes after texting Ziva, Tim was beginning to grow impatient. The life of his eardrums was at stake! Where were they?

Finally, he signed to Abby that he'd be right back - she had begun to teach him ASL on the bus rides to school - and jogged up the path a couple yards until he could hear himself think.

He leaned against a random card table that stood abandoned beneath a group of towering pine trees and dialed Ziva's number.

After three rings, the Israeli girl picked up. "David."

Immediately, in the background, Tony snorted. "You answer your phone like that? What are you, _Gibbs _or something?"

"Shut up. Yes, Tim?"

"Where _are_ you guys?" McGee whined, feeling justifiably put-out. "I'm losing my hearing!"

"I am sorry, McGee," Ziva apologized calmly. "We are almost there."

"Where are you?"

"On the trail, in the wooded section just past the picnic area? We will be there momentarily, Tim-"

"-You say 'momentarily?' What are you, _Michelle Lee_ or something?"

"Shut up, Tony! I-"

Ziva stopped speaking suddenly. "Is that . . . " Tim heard her take in a sharp breath, almost a gasp. "_Get down_!"

Something louder than the concert music suddenly blasted Tim's eardrums. Wincing, he briefly pulled the cell away from his ear. Upon returning it, he was greeted with silence. "Hello? Ziva?"

Nothing.

And then Tim realized what the noise had been.

Gunshots.

**Hey, I DID warn you! What do you think? Favorite lines, favorite characters? Predictions, suggestions, beauty tips? I take it all. Review and I'll give you a life-time supply of imaginary candy bars! **


	14. Chapter 14

**So, yeah. Plot advancements. Maaaaajor plot advancements. Hold on tight! Oh, and review. Pleeease? **

**Disclaimer - alkfjkldjhfklhaklklfha;l**

Gibbs had just managed to persuade Jenny into letting him pay for the pizza - which, apparently, was a custom so utterly antiquated and sexist that most women would deck him, should he even attempt to tip the waiter - when his phone buzzed, alerting him to a new text message.

Gibbs, as a rule, was not much for conversation, especially when said conversation consisted of baffling abbreviations and acronyms on the teeny little screen of a phone he could not seem to figure out.

The only three people who _did_ text him - in other words, the people who enjoyed causing him pain or just plain didn't care - were Mike, Ziva, and Jenny.

Jenny was sitting across from him right now, batting her eyelashes at the pizzeria manager in an effort to make good on her bet with Gibbs that she could seduce the man into giving them a discount on their pizza; obviously, it was not she who had texted him.

This left Ziva and Mike. Either way, he could not open a text from them with Jenny sitting across the table from him, so Gibbs waited until the mustachioed Italian with the beer gut motioned Jenny over, then quickly flipped open his phone.

Oddly enough, it was neither Ziva nor Mike, but a number he did not recognize.

_HI, MR. GIBBS. MY NAME'S ABBY SCIUTO. I'M IN YOUR GYM CLASS. WHICH IS WEIRD. I DIDN'T KNOW ZIVA WAS RELATED TO A GYM THAT EXPLAINS HER OVER-AGRESSIVE ATTITUDE . . . NO OFFENSE. ANYWAY, UM, WE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO, BUT WE FOUND ZIVA'S CELL, AND YOU'RE THE ONLY ADULT SHE HAS LISTED UNDER HER CONTACTS, SO TIM SUGGESTED THAT WE TEXT YOU. (HE'S IN YOUR CLASS, TOO, BUT YOU DON'T SEEM TO LIKE HIM THAT MUCH. PLUS HE'S SCARED OF YOU.) ANYWAY, UM, MAYBE YOU'D BETTER CALL ME, SO I CAN EXPLAIN...? I'M PRETTY SURE IT MIGHT BE IMPORTANT. THANKS!_

This wordy bit of nonsense required a reread . . . and another . . . before Gibbs was able to unearth a point. Sighing, he got to his feet, motioned to Jenny that he'd be right back, and stepped out the door into the cool October night.

The phone did not even ring once before Abby picked up. "Mr. Gibbs?"

"Just Gibbs."

"Oh, okay. Hi. Like I said, I'm in your gym class and so is Tim, only he doesn't actually participate very much. Mostly he just stands in one place and flinches when the ball comes near him-"

"-_Abby_!" Gibbs heard someone protest in the background.

"You know it's true, Tim! Anyway, um-"

"Is Ziva okay?" Gibbs questioned, ignoring the troubled feeling in his gut that, up until now, he had hoped was just anchovies.

". . . Well, we don't know," Abby admitted finally. "See, Tim was on the phone with her, and then there were loud noises, which he thinks might have been gunshots. And then she must have dropped her phone, because she stopped talking."

Gibbs wondered if _this_ girl ever stopped talking.

"And we found her phone, but no Ziva. Or Tony. . . Hey, do you think maybe the two of them, um, you know . . ."

"I'm pretty sure Tony and Ziva hate each other," someone disagreed matter-of-factly in the background. Gibbs smirked, even as worry began to grow.

"But it's not hate!" Abby protested. "It's, like, flirty-hate, and-"

"Explain the gunshots, then."

Silence. Finally, Gibbs made an executive decision. "Stay where you are. I'll send a team over-"

Oops. He'd gone into federal agent mode. Gibbs cursed himself silently even as Abby started up again.

"A team? I thought you were a gym teacher? Do you have, like, a league of PE instructors? 'Cause that would be hard core. And really intimidating-"

Sighing, Gibbs repeated, "Stay where you are," and hung up.

Looked like he'd need a rain check on dessert tonight.

...

Ziva was not sure whether to be thankful for or concerned about how calmly Tony was taking things into stride.

Normal people, she was fairly certain, did not wake up in the trunk of a car, after being hit over the head with the butt of a gun, and make movie references.

This was barely tolerable, but it wasn't until Tony started making innuendos that Ziva truly began to fear for her sanity.

Her head pounded, her leg was bleeding a good deal, and her hands were held behind her back with duct tape, which would hurt like hell upon removal.

Unfortunately, removal would have to occur sooner, rather than later, because judging from the lurching of the car, they were on a dirt road.

Dirt roads meant isolation; isolation meant that they would have a long hike ahead of them before they could reach Gibbs or anyone of use.

Ziva just wished they hadn't taken Tony, too.

This would definitely require explanations, and her head hurt too much for her to lie convincingly right now.

But mostly, Ziva really just wished Tony would shut up.

Sighing, she decided that actions would have to be taken, even if it did require some . . . awkward positioning.

"Alright. See if you can turn your back to me," Ziva instructed, shifting and biting back a gasp at the jolt of pain that accompanied her movement.

"Why?" Tony asked suspiciously, "are you gonna stab me or something?"

"I am going to untie you," she explained, exasperated.

"How? You're tied up, too," he pointed out, ever so perceptively. She hoped he could see her rolling her eyes in the darkness.

"Just do it."

"Not until you explain what you're going to do to me," Tony answered in a voice that suggested he would be crossing his arms stubbornly if he could.

Ziva sighed and braced herself for the barrage of bad jokes that she knew were coming. "I am going to try to rip the duct tape off with my teeth."

Predictably, Tony raised his eyebrows and grinned suggestively. "Ooh, kinky . . .

**You know what to do! (Review, if you didn't)**


	15. Chapter 15

**This is definitely my favorite chapter thus far. Don't really know why, but I had a lot of fun writing it. So. Um, this is exclusively Tony and Ziva. Sorry. Next chapter will have the other characters, I promise. This is kind of important to the plot, however, so I'd suggest reading anyway. And then reviewing. Just a suggestion . . . **

**Disclaimer: I don't want to be a chicken, I don't want to be a duck, I don't want to lay an egg . . . (quack, quack, quack, quack!)**

Tony DiNozzo was scared.

This was, of course, fairly understandable, given that he had been shot at, pistol-whipped, and bundled into the back of a stinky old car with quite possibly the least sympathetic companion of all time.

Ziva, apparently, was no stranger to the many pleasurable methods of kidnapping. She had come to startlingly rapidly, like some sort of hard-core ninja soldier, and had been all business ever since, securing that Tony was uninjured and then rushing head-on into an elaborate, albeit questionable, escape plan.

Now she was hunched over in an awkward ball, bracing herself with her head pressed against his lower back as she gnawed away at the thick layer of silver tape that rendered his hands useless.

A joke presented itself, and Tony accepted the cover it provided gratefully. He'd learned early that showing your fear could be dangerous, and he did not want to be a dead weight to Ziva, whose eyes were narrowed in concentration and whose breath was warm against his wrists.

This was not the same Ziva as the Ziva who had laughed with him in the park earlier that night, and he was as much scared of her as he was of whoever it was that had hit him over the head an hour or so before.

This Ziva was harder, colder, and suddenly he found himself missing the devilish brown eyes that did things to his head, whether she was throwing her head back and laughing or pressing a crispy French fry to his jugular. He wanted the old Ziva back.

"Well this is nice," Tony remarked airily, craning his neck to try and gauge his friend's reaction. "Do you always abduct your secret crushes and then rescue them in an attempt to win their affections, Prince Charming?"

Ziva briefly leant back to spit some little pieces of nibbled gray tape and glare at Tony. "Do you always joke when your life is in danger?"

Tony shrugged. "Works for heroes in the movies, doesn't it?"

Ziva made a noise that could have been either sympathetic or irritated - or maybe she was just choking on an especially large piece of tape - and continued her awkward gnawing.

"But, seriously," Tony continued, trying not to shudder as the side of Ziva's mouth brushed up against the underside of his wrist, "this is a total turn-on. Forget about flowers and chocolates, next time I want to impress a girl, I'll just brain her with a gun, and- OW!"

Tony's sarcastic jibes ended in a yelp of pain as teeth dug sharply into his wrist.

Ziva pulled back with a rueful grin that was strafed with silver fragments. "Sorry. My mouth slipped," she offered.

Tony doubted it, but at least she was smiling. This, the intentional injuring of himself by Ziva, was familiar territory. This, he could handle.

"I'm still not entirely convinced you didn't set this all up in the hopes of wooing me," he continued, with his best attempt at calmness. Ziva snorted, as her mouth was otherwise engaged.

"I just wish you could have hired someone with more trunk space. I can't feel my feet anymore."

To further demonstrate his woeful discomfort, Tony attempted to shift his legs, which were tucked rather painfully underneath him in an unnatural position, and ended up kicking Ziva in the leg with his numb foot.

Ziva drew back so abruptly, and with such an uncharacteristic gasp, that Tony knew immediately that something was up. "Zi?"

She did not answer - at least, not in English - just closed her eyes sharply and took in a short hiss of a breathe, muttering a string of Hebrew on the shuddery exhale.

"Ziva." Tony fumbled with his bound-together hands, pulling a muscle in his back in the process, until his fingers brushed against Ziva's face. "Hey. What's going on?"

Ziva snorted in a crippled attempt at exasperation. "Stop groping me, Tony, and-"

Tony continued to wreck his back, forcing his hands to skim down his friends arm, to the leg he had accidentally jarred. His fingers came away sticky. "You're bleeding," he realized.

Ziva sighed in irritation and attempted to jerk her leg away from her friend. "Tony, I am fi-"

Her words ended in a surprisingly girly-sounding gasp and several decidedly unladylike curse words, this time in English, no doubt for Tony's benefit.

Tony sighed, resigned himself to a life as a modern-day Quasimodo, and found his friend's good leg. "Hey. Talk to me. Now." He made his voice hard in an effort to disguise his concern.

"I . . . may have been clipped by a bullet during our capture," Ziva admitted sullenly through gritted teeth. Her breath came in short, painful gasps.

"Clipped?"

"A through and through flesh wound," she explained, sounding frustrated. "It is not bad. I have had worse-"

This was hardly reassuring, and it made the elephant in the room - excuse me, trunk - that much more prominent. Suddenly fed up with Ziva's cryptic, tough-guy attitude, Tony decided there was no time like the present to address said elephant.

"_How_? How has the daughter of an insignificant Mossad agent suffered worse than a gunshot?" he demanded. "What the hell is going on here, Ziva? You gun down a so-called 'random intruder' - from the rooftop, no less! - and then suddenly you've got yourself a federal agent babysitter. And now we're ambushed, knocked out, and locked in the back of a smelly old car. I mean, unless my dad has _really_ pissed someone off, you have some _major_ explaining to do."

There was a long moment of silence before Ziva leaned forward, a sharp intake of breath the only sign that she was in any discomfort, and began to gnaw at the duct tape once more. Tony started to protest, but there was something dark in the girl's brown eyes that unnerved him. Her face looked different - older, harder.

He leaned forward to let the muscles in his back relax and his forehead rest against the side of the trunk, closed his eyes, and tried to ignore the way his arms broke out into goose bumps every times Ziva's lips brushed against his skin.

It was about fifteen minutes later when Ziva finally sat back, wincing slightly but looking mildly satisfied. "That should do it," she announced. "Try to break free."

Valiantly suppressing the urge to let loose with an Incredible Hulk roar, Tony did as he was told. After a moment of tugging, the silver restraint gave. "_Yes_!"

Quickly, he shifted his half-dead legs and turned to Ziva. Looking at her full-on, he could see that his friend had lost a great deal of blood from the slightly unhealthy tinge to her swarthy skin. He opened his mouth, not entirely sure what to say, but she cut him off.

"We do not have time to argue right now, Tony. _Please_."

While irritated, Tony saw the logic in Ziva's plea. "Fine," he decided, fixing her with a firm look, "but this conversation is not over. Now can you shift so that your back's toward me without irritating your leg?"

After a second of hesitation, Ziva nodded and slowly began to make painful progress. Tony watched for a moment, before giving in to his irrational side and halting her progress. "Stop. Stop, before you kill yourself."

"I am fine," Ziva insisted through grit teeth. "I was trained to have extremely high pain tolerance, I-"

"Shut up," Tony directed shortly, ignoring his protesting back and crawling through the dim interior. "Okay. Can you lift your bad leg enough for me to get my arm under you?" he questioned briskly. Hesitantly, Ziva nodded and complied, with much macho-man stoicism.

Looping his other arm around her shoulders, Tony cautiously lifted the slight girl a couple of inches off the matted lint of the trunk interior, moving her away from the wall so that he had access to her bound hands. His stomach lurched at the slight moan that escaped from Ziva. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he apologized slightly wildly. "I'm sorry."

Closing her eyes, Ziva shook her head. "It is not your fault. I am fine. Now, hurry. There is a knife in my back pocket. If you can get that-"

After retrieving the knife, it was a matter of seconds before Ziva's duct tape bindings were cut free. The Israeli girl didn't waste even a second to rub some feeling back into her wrists, just set to work prying up the rug. "There is a release mechanism," she explained shortly, "under the flooring. If we can find it, we can open the trunk and-"

"Hey, presto!" Tony finished unenthusiastically. "And then what? We walk miles and miles through the woods until we stumble across a civilization or perhaps some friendly natives?"

"No," Ziva corrected, teeth baring in something fiercer than satisfaction as she yanked up the rug to reveal the gold mine, "we _run_."

Tony groaned.

**Hurrah! And, yes, that twas a substantial dose of Ziva-whump. Because I can, and because I love Ziva. ****In a twisted sort of way. Whatever. The point is that I've eaten too much chocolate to be entirely sane. Oh, and you should review. Because otherwise bad things will happen to you. Baaaaaaad things. ****On that cheerful note, I will depart. Love and candy to all my reviewers!**


	16. Chapter 16

**Sorry for not updating over the weekend! I was busy doing important stuff like sleeping. You know. Anyway, I have the rest of the week off from school, so if enough of y'all review, I'll see what I can do about updating before the weekend. If I don't catch you before Thursday . . . Happy Thanksgiving! **

**Disclaimer: Can I get a gobble, gobble, gobble? **

Gibbs was not sure how he felt about Eli David's reaction to the news of his daughter's kidnapping. There had been a long pause before the newly appointed Deputy Director of Mossad, elected only seven months earlier, had asked crisply, "What leads do you have?"

Gibbs had duly reported their findings - the absolute chaos of the concert had effectively masked the noise of engines or gunshots, and no one had seen anything suspicious. "My people found a tire track and a couple shell casings. We're running a search-"

Eli had raised a hand, adjusting his glasses with the other, and cut Gibbs off neatly. "And I suppose this is your jurisdiction, given the circumstances?"

Gibbs grit his teeth as he searched the Israeli man's face for signs of the concern or worry that he himself felt for the girl whom he had been assigned to protect. She had grown on him over the past several weeks, and the thought of her being injured or worse was sickening.

The only thing he saw in Eli David's eyes was the reflection of the computer screen he was broadcasting from.

Finally, Gibbs answered. "Unless you say otherwise, Director, NCIS will take the lead-"

Eli nodded and folded his hands together. "Keep me posted, Agent," he instructed, and terminated the link.

...

Abby was absolutely frantic, teetering, even, on the brink of hysteria. Not only had she missed the second half of a fantastic concert, she now sat in a federal agency conference room with only a stone-faced guy in a suit and a nervous Timmy for company.

She had attempted conversation, only to remember that anything she said or did could technically be used against her, even though she wasn't exactly being arrested, per se . . .

And so she had fallen into an uncomfortable silence, with only her constant wriggling serving as an outlet for her nervous (caffeine-generated) energy. She was in the process of cracking her back for the twelfth time - she had been counting - when the door opened and Gibbs walked in.

Gibbs looked different when he wasn't in sweats with a lanyard and a whistle hanging from his neck. He looked even scarier than usual, like he was in his element. With a nod, he dismissed the stony-faced fed and pulled up a chair.

"Tim McGee and Abigail Sciuto, right?" he confirmed. At Abby's nod, he continued. "My name is Special Agent Gibbs, and-"

"You're not actually a gym teacher, right?" Abby guessed quickly. "Ohmygosh, are you undercover or something? Like, drug raid? Because I can help! I know exactly who's shooting up in the ladies' room at lunch and who spikes their coffee with vodka. Oh, and Allie Felton's boyfriend is abusing her - you can tell, 'cause she always wears long-sleeved shirts and way too much makeup-"

Gibbs blinked, looking fairly shell-shocked. "Yes and no."

Well, that was a new one. Not just a noncommittal answer . . . Two answers!

"Which one?" Abby asked flatly, crossing her arms and staring her mysterious gym teacher down. She held out for a while under the icy blues before remembering that her PE grade DID affect her overall average. She blinked and sat back in her seat. "I'm all ears, Coach."

Gibbs winced. "Gibbs is fine."

More silence. Sighing, Abby gave in. "Okay, Gibbs, what's the deal here? Where are Ziva and Tony? Where are your sweats and sneakers and obnoxious whistle? Who the heck is NCIS? And why don't they supply donuts to people in interrogation? I haven't eaten anything since-"

Gibbs was starting to think the silence was the more preferable of options. "Abigail. Abby."

She blinked and pouted. "I really am hungry."

Gibbs got to his feet and murmured a request to the agent standing guard outside the door as Abby and Tim exchanged questioning glances behind the man's back.

Abby attempted to communicate her fear, confusion, and utmost starvation by rapidly blinking her eyes, but only succeeded in shaking loose a clump of mascara. Tim looked a bit sick - either utterly terrified, or actually ill. Either way, Abby made note of the exits, air ventilation shafts, and garbage cans in proximity, lest her friend decide to spill his guts . . . literally.

Gibbs sat back down, announcing that snacks were on the way, then cut to the chase. "My name is Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and I'm a federal agent working undercover at your high school."

Abby couldn't help but smirk, hungry and scared as she was. "Your name is LEROY?"

...

Tony DiNozzo had always prided himself in being well educated in the fine art of swearing, but he was beginning to think that perhaps his title as the potty-mouth of the high school was being threatened, because Ziva David had THE WORST sailor's mouth he had ever encountered in all his years. Add this to the fact that the girl seemed to speak several languages fluently enough to insure her with a healthy back-up plan.

He had learnt this first-hand through the hour the two had spent trekking through the densely vegetated grounds of an unknown forest. Each step the girl took was accompanied by a sharp, painful hiss on the inhale, and a expletive on the exhale. It was really quite unnerving, especially as he was fairly certain that he had yet to hear a repeat.

"How many languages do you speak?" he questioned finally, if only to break the eerie silence they walked - or in Ziva's case, limped - in. It was dark now, cool and dusky in the heart of the woods, and admittedly very creepy.

"Why?" Ziva's voice was strained and terse, and Tony couldn't help but sneak another glance at the girl's leg. Even in the darkness, he could see where the fabric of her jeans was stained dark with blood. He wondered how much longer she'd be able to hold out.

"I was just wondering how long it took you to master such a refined vocabulary," he answered innocently, tearing his eyes away and trying not to think about the rasp of pain in each breath she took.

Ziva smiled begrudgingly. "I speak six languages fluently," she answered, "but I can curse in . . . I believe it was fourteen at last count."

He whistled long and low. "You are a truly amazing individual."

Her mouth quirked in an ironic expression a bit too dry to be a smile. "I would bow, but . . . "

She gestured to her leg, and Tony winced. "Yeah. How 'bout we don't do that . . . "

She rolled her eyes, and turned away, peering off into the darkness intently as if she expected to find answers there.

Tony followed her gaze, but all he could make out were shadows.

...

Mike Franks was tearing apart a breakfast burrito with all the etiquette of a feral beast who had gone several days without food, with his feet up on the desk and his eyes closed in culinary-induced ecstasy, when Gibbs led the two teenagers down the stairs and into the bullpen.

"Mornin'," he greeted Abby and Tim with a nod before sinking his teeth once more into the steaming wrap. Tim nodded politely. Abby waved.

"Are you at our school, too?" she questioned. "I don't remember you. Do you teach senior gym? Or Driver's Ed? Or Sex Ed?"

Mike nearly choked on his mouthful and had to sit up straight, swinging his feet off the desk, in order to recover. "No, little lady. That's more the probie's line of-"

Abby looked at the Agent admiringly. "Do you ever call people 'Pardner?'" she inquired suddenly and with great interest.

Franks blinked. "No. Why?"

"You have . . . this voice . . . " Abby explained, closing her eyes and gesturing dramatically to further emphasize her point. "It just screams for a ten-gallon hat and some whisky . . . "

He chuckled. "I could use that whisky right about now, I'm tellin' you. Probie, we finally got in touch with DiNozzo Senior. He's on his way up now."

...

The darkness soon turned to a sort of purply-gray fog that hijacked the sky and made the towering pine trees look like violent, stark silhouettes on the skyline. There was not a building in sight.

"We're screwed!" Tony declared finally, flinging himself down into an inviting bank of fallen leaves and immediately regretting it. The golden foliage was slick with dew and smelled faintly of rot.

Ziva leaned against the nearest tree trunk, looking drained and weary, and turned her face up to study the sky, which had just been washed in the first rays of the rising sun. "The sun rises in the east-" she began, which was initiative enough for Tony to begin warbling Beauty and the Beast.

"Certain as the sunnnn . . . Rising in the eeeeast!"

"Stop it." Ziva stooped painfully to gather a handful of leaves, which she proceeded to toss half-heartedly at Tony. "Do not sing or I will-" she left the threat hanging as suddenly the Israeli girl's knees buckled and vision swam.

She crumpled into the leaves just as the sound of an engine made its way through the trees.

**I'm getting a bit addicted to these cliffies, aren't I? Shame on me and such. So, write me a poem. Tell me a random story about your pet gopher named Phil. Whatever. Throw virtual drumsticks at me as a punishment for my utterly cruel nature, with its tendencies to stop the story at absolutely nail-biting moments . . . Just don't throw real turkey. 'Cause that's just mean. For both the turkey and me. And my white shirt. So, yeah. Happy Thanksgiving! Tootles! **


	17. Chapter 17

**I love this chapter. I really do. So much happens, and there's a little bit of everyone. But, of course, it is your opinion that matters, so drop me a line, will ya? Thanks for everyone who reads, extra thanks to those who review! **

**Disclaimer: Kiiiiillll theeee spaaaaaarreeeee... Name that moviiiiieee... GO! **

DiNozzo Senior was well-dressed and, if his suitcase label had anything to say about it, well-funded, but from what Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs could see, there was one major and prominent deficiency.

He grinned with that familiar grin that made the local high-school girls go wild, straightened his suit lapel almost compulsively, and sat back lazily in his chair. "So you're saying Junior's been kidnapped?"

"We have reason to believe-"

"He was with that girl, right?" Senior's eyes narrowed shrewdly. "The pretty one. Who he's not dating?"

"That's right," Gibbs answered slowly, feeling mildly surprised that Senior knew as much as he did. "We are taking action to-"

"I would check the local motels," Senior said bluntly, smirking suggestively, "and the girl's bedroom."

It didn't take an investigator to figure out where Mr. DiNozzo was going with this. Gibbs sipped his coffee grimly and tried not to get angry. "Ziva and your son are not seeing each other-"

The ruddy-faced, graying man chortled. "That's never stopped Junior before. Chip off the old block, that one. . . Actually, I've got a bit of a situation myself, waiting at the house"- he leaned in confidentially and lowered his voice- "She's a blonde. So I'd suggest you look into my theory, then we'll talk, Agent. . . "

"Gibbs."

"Right. Gibbs. Let me know when you find the delinquents, won't you? Give 'em hell for me and tell Junior I'll be busy tonight. . . Matter of fact, Agent Gibbs, it might be better if he didn't come home till I've. . . handled my situation, if you know what I mean. . ."

The suggestive wink that accompanied this statement made its meaning very clear indeed, but Gibbs kept his face straight and his anger in check until the door was safely closed, wondering how the hell a man like this ever thought himself fit to raise a kid in the first place.

It looked like he was going to need another cup of coffee.

...

The first thing Ziva was aware of, upon regaining consciousness, was the ripe, unpleasant stench of the damp, moldy leaves that her face was pressed up against. The sharp odor made her nose crinkle, but it served as an effective alarm clock, reminding that now was not the time to hit the snooze button and lounge around for a couple more minutes in her luxurious bed of slimy, wet leaves.

She groaned, forced her eyes open, and creaked into a technically upright position, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her leg.

Before she could say anything, Tony had one hand over her mouth and was using the other to force her back down to the ground, pressing her face into the smelly leaves.

She promptly bit his hand, lest he think he could get away with man-handling her, and dug her elbow into his ribcage as he dropped down next to her, one arm across her back, face against her shoulder. He hissed in pain and she smiled against his palm.

"Damn it, Ziva," he hissed, voice very close to her ear. "What the hell was that?"

She bit his hand again, partly to demonstrate that she could not answer while he was smothering her, but mostly just because she needed a little reassurance. His muffled yelp was endearingly familiar, and she felt herself relax a little.

After a tense moment or two of painful silence, Tony released her, hesitantly moving into a crouch and peering out through the trees as Ziva struggled to her knees. Damn, her leg hurt.

"It's gone," he announced finally, straightening and turning away from the road.

Ziva wondered if there was some way she could refrain from standing that would still appear casual. Perhaps she could prop herself up against a tree trunk while she got her feet under her?

"What is gone?" she asked crisply, gritting her teeth and moving her good leg into position. So far so good.

"There was a van," he explained a bit distractedly, watching her painstakingly slow movements with a look of indecision. "Three guys. With guns."

"They were looking for us?"

He shrugged. "Looked that way. They were crawling along with the headlights on."

"We will have to move further into the woods, where they will not be able to reach us with cars."

She wrapped her left arm around the tree trunk, put as much weight as possible on her good leg, and took a deep, bracing breath. Tony was still watching her, looking pained. He didn't reply right away.

"Yeah, I was thinking about that. And I've got an idea."

Taking advantage of his temporary distraction, Ziva lurched to her feet. Immediately the throbbing in her thigh became so intense that she nearly blacked out all over again. The world around her pitched and rocked like a tiny boat in a stormy sea.

Tony moved fast, wrapping his arms around her waist and lowering her back to the ground before she could think to do anything more than hiss out a couple of Hebrew expletives.

"Hey. Zi." His voice was very close to her ear, hushed and concerned. "Don't try to get up. I need you conscious if we're going to get out of here, okay? Zi. Ziva."

The fog slowly began to clear, and the pain lessened until she could just about open her eyes. She let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.

"I am . . . fine." Her voice sounded embarrassingly strained, so Ziva clenched her hands and breathed until she'd gathered herself a bit more. "I am fine, Tony." He looked unconvinced, so she pressed onward. "You said you had a plan?"

Tony nodded finally, and keeping one hand on the small of her back like you would with a baby just learning to sit up, took a deep breath. "So this is what we're gonna do . . ."

...

Tim was not having a very good day by any stretch of the imagination. Here it was, only 5 in the morning, and he already had a headache the size of the extra-extra-large caffeinated drink Abby had discovered in the NCIS break room, which she was consuming with truly terrifying pleasure.

"Oh my god!" she exclaimed. Tim mentally added another tally to the rapidly filling chart in his head. "This is so, so absurdly good, Tim, that I think I might throw up. It's like coffee, only sweet, and- _damn_, I think I'm buzzed."

"Abs, I think you need to slow down on the-" he attempted for the fifth time to reason with the caffeinated Goth, again to no avail.

"I need caffeine, Tim, or I am going to have a meltdown," Abby protested, eyes feverishly bright. She seized her pigtail, braided it, unraveled the braid, and started over again after another chug of her fruity red drug of choice, all in about 30 seconds.

Tim had been scared of the federal agents, yes, but right now he was beginning to wish that Agent Franks the Cowboy would come back.

He was, by far, the lesser of two evils right.

...

Jennifer Shepard knew that something was up the moment she saw the car. It was early morning. The sky was only just beginning to brighten with the first hint of sunlight, and the glass of the window was icy when she pressed her forehead up against it.

The navy blue Dodge Charger was parked across the street and down the road, conspicuously inconspicuous enough to put a sinking feeling in Jenny's gut.

Damn it.

She hurriedly plunked down her mug of coffee, shrugged into her pale blue terrycloth robe, and vaulted up onto the counter to retrieve her back-up gun from where it lay behind the extra dishwasher detergent in the nearly inaccessible cabinet above the fridge.

She padded to the front door in her bare feet and over-long pajama pants, pressing herself against the wall beside the doorjamb and cocking her gun. Thank God that Jessica and Maika weren't early risers . . .

From the other side of the wall came the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking.

One, two, three-

Jenny flung the door open with her free hand, then pushed off the wall, pointing her gun and shouting as loudly as she dared.

_"Federal agent! Federal agent! Drop your-"_

...

Gibbs stood with his back pressed against the wall and his gun at the ready, trying to quell the sick feeling in his gut. It wasn't fear, but something like guilt, and maybe even a little regret. He had really like Jennifer Shepard, with her red hair and her coffee addiction-

Suddenly the door was thrown open with a bang, and Gibbs jumped into action, steadying his gun and moving for the door.

_"Federal agent! Federal agent! Drop your-"_

He stopped short as things suddenly ceased making sense. At the door stood a wild-eyed, tousle-haired redhead in a blue robe, holding a gun and yelling the exact same thing as Gibbs.

Wait.

_What?_

...

Tony was pretty sure that he was losing his mind. There was, quite honestly, no other plausible explanation for his reckless actions, for the strange, suicidal plans his brain kept dubbing as options.

If somebody had told him yesterday that he would be spending the ungodly hours of the morning in a random, unidentified woods with an incapacitated Ziva David as his sole companion, he would have set Ziva on them. Or maybe he would've just laughed and Facebook-stalked them.

He wasn't really entirely sure of his actions anymore.

Like right now, for example, he couldn't help but wonder if he had some sort of unconscious death wish, because ogling Ziva when she was in a mood like THIS was certainly a fast pass to mortal peril, followed shortly by certain death.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," he remarked abruptly, feeling the need to joke to cover the fear he was struggling with right now.

Ziva looked up briefly, blowing a stray curl out of her eyes, and raised a dark eyebrow. "And why is that?"

Tony glanced toward the road, reassuring himself, then gestured to the strange operation that Ziva was performing.

"Legs like that, and you're wearing shapeless cargo pants?" He pretended to fume. "You've been holding out on me."

"Cargo pants allow for me to carry more than one weapon undetected."

"Skinny jeans allow for me to have something nice to look at during our multitude of near-death escapades," he countered.

Ziva made a noise similar to a laugh, then made a decisive motion with her precious knife, slicing off the greater portion of her pant leg, exposing all but the very top of her thigh.

Tony's breath caught at the gruesome mess of blackened, dried blood and swollen, red skin that was defacing the otherwise pleasurable view. "Holy crap."

"You see? It is a through-and-through. I was only clipped."

"How reassuring."

Ziva set to work slicing the shorn fabric, most of it stiff with dried blood, and constructing a make-shift bandage out of it. "So now we wait?"

"Now we wait," Tony agreed. "Want to play strip poker?"

**So? What is the verdict? Any predictions as to what the heck is going on? Take a guess as to what drink Abby has discovered, much to Tim's chagrin! (It's pretty obvious, actually) My point being - review! ktnxbye! **


	18. Chapter 18

**Hold on tight. Really tight. Like you're riding an extreme roller-coaster and your safety harness is just loose enough to be nerve-wracking. That's how tight you need to hold on. (True story, by the way... happened to my friend's brother. Scary yet amusing stuff, that.) Anyway, what was I saying? I was so sure that I had a point in there somewhere . . . Oh, yeah! Plot advancements. Much plot advancements. Massive plot advancements. Need I supply you with another metaphor? Hmm . . . **

**Disclaimer: So there was, like, this guy and he was all like "No way!" and then I was like "Yes way!" And then he was like "No way!" and then I was like "Yes way!" and then he was like **…

As travelers went, Tony DiNozzo was by no means a frequent-flier to the far-off, elusive land known simply as THE ZONE, with all caps for emphasis.

Tony was fairly smart, as well-adjusted as any rich kid with a nonexistent father figure could be, and could keep his temper in check with only a bit of effort, but there was a reason his initials were ADD. And it had nothing to do with his superior addition skills.

He was charming, he was good-looking, but calm he was not.

Tony had only entered THE ZONE twice in his entire life, or at least of what he could remember.

There'd been the Unexpectedly Flammable Leftover Anchovy Pizza Incident, in which he hadn't thought, simply acted. The next coherent thought he'd had, as he stood with the fire extinguisher in hand, eyeing sheepishly the melted heap of what had once been a microwave, was that he was going to have to unearth the take-out menu from underneath the couch.

He hadn't attempted to dub the other incident with a humorously capitalized title, because there wasn't really anything funny about it.

He'd been showing off for the cheerleaders during football practice, throwing his weight around and flashing the killer grin that never failed to make the ladies swoon.

Literally.

It was hot, Jessica Hardy had always been delicate, and Mr. Gibbs had been ragging on Vance for weeks now to get the chain link railings of the bleachers fixed.

She fell about eighteen feet, and landed at a terrible, broken angle that made her look like a squashed bug. Her eyes were closed and the blood in her hair pooled around her head, dark on the gravel.

Everyone had screamed. Tony had thrown his phone at the nearest cheerleader, barked for someone to call 911, and blasted head-on into THE ZONE.

He had been a school hero for a whole week, right up until the day he accidentally backed up the entire septic system whilst attempting to flush a freshman's 5-dollar-foot-long down the toilet.

Then he'd just been Tony DiNozzo, that idiotic junior who made the entire school smell like crap.

He'd rather enjoyed that title, though the stench had, admittedly, put a bit of a damper on his new claim to stardom.

But now Tony was back in THE ZONE, where there was no time for recollections, whether of exploding pizza or exploding toilets, and hardly even a second to be spared in which to ogle Ziva, who really could work the 'bloody shirt' vibe after all.

He took a moment to appreciate this unknown talent of hers as they stood in a tense, frozen silence, muscles tight and ready for action. Ziva was standing upright, arm wrapped casually around a tree trunk for support, eyes fixed on the road. Her black singlet had ridden up, exposing a strip of tanned skin as well as a dark, marbled slash of scar tissue.

After much mental debate, he decided not to ask.

"Are you sure you'll be able to run?" he asked, for what had to be the eighteen-hundredth time. "I don't want you pulling a damsel-in-distress on me at the last minute-"

"Hush. Here it comes."

Sure enough, in the distance Tony could hear the quiet purr of a motor. As the noise grew closer, the dark sedan from earlier came into view.

Surprisingly, he was not scared. There wasn't a lot of room for emotion in THE ZONE, and he was devoting all that area to concern for Little Miss David and her stubborn insistence that she was 'fine.'

Ziva's voice was calm, quiet, unconcerned. Low, deadly. "Three. Two. One-"

Tony took a deep breath as Ziva stepped out into the open roadway.

At the risk of sounding like Buddy Valastro . . . It was go time.

...

"Sit."

Gibbs did as he was told, and Jenny plunked a ceramic mug down in front of him, emblazoned with a peeling image of a rather premature snowman, considering that it was only October. She paused, halfway to the coffee pot, and turned back.

"Black coffee? Or was that part of the guise, too?"

"Wasn't really a guise," he protested lamely, nodding a yes and accepting the caffeine gratefully.

She arched an eyebrow challengingly. "Oh, no? So do you normally wear sweatpants and a whistle?"

"Do you really wear frumpy pantsuits?" he countered. Jenny grinned.

"Touché. So does that make us even?"

Gibbs took a sip of his coffee and considered. "No."

Jenny crossed her arms with that familiar, impatient look on her face. "We're _not_ even?"

He shook his head. "No, I'm going to need a hell of a lot of answers before we call it even, Jen. More coffee, too."

Jenny perched on the counter in her periwinkle bathrobe, took a long sip from a fluorescent yellow mug, and studied him suspiciously. "What do you want to know?"

...

Ziva was playing up the limp, really milking the whole 'I am a young female, thus you shall pity me and feel obligated to buy me donuts and such' role that she had been assigned.

She was saying something to the guy Tony recognized as the perverted creep who'd given them a discount on their headphones, no doubt smiling that dangerously attractive smile and biting at the corner of her lower lip like she did. Tony, however, wasn't listening to anything except the Mission: Impossible theme song, which was playing at full volume inside his head.

At the sight of the reputedly-formidable Israeli girl, the car's occupants had screeched to a halt and jumped out, guns at the ready, just as Tony had planned.

It was nice being right, though this knowledge lost a bit of its glimmer as Ziva's suggestions proved correct as well - no half-decent gun-for-hire went anywhere without a back-up weapon.

There was one gun on the backseat of the sedan, in plain view. Tony moved as silently as humanly possible, opening the door just enough to slide a hand in.

The gun felt cold and foreign in his hand, but there was no time to do anything about it, because just then Ziva gave the cue and there was nothing to do but move.

Tony was strong - a testament to Gibbs' violently strenuous gym classes - but Ziva was a _freak_.

It was like something out of a movie, only way more terrifying and weirdly alluring. She caught the gun he threw her neatly and had two men on the ground in the time it took Tony to knock out the third guy.

Brad the creepy pervert guy tried to run, but Tony tackled him as easily as he did the guys at practice. Once Brad was on the ground, however, Tony wasn't quite sure what to do with him.

He turned to Ziva for guidance, as this was obviously her area of expertise. "What do we-"

She tossed him the gun, leaning back against the hood of the sedan and looking decidedly worn-out from the sudden excitement. Tony caught the weapon automatically, eyeing it with not a clue what to do.

"You want me to-"

"He would not have hesitated to do the same for you," Ziva interrupted coldly.

Tony knew it was true, but it still felt wrong. Brad was laying on his stomach, face pressed into the dirt. He'd ceased to struggle, and even the notion that this creep had been flirting with Ziva couldn't settle the funny feeling in Tony's gut.

"I will do it if you cannot-"

Tony made a decision, neatly knocking Brad out with the butt of the gun. "We're good."

He turned and swooped Ziva up into his arms, bridal-style, before she could protest or say anything critical, as her raised eyebrows suggested she was about to do. "Let's roll."

...

"Jennifer Shepard. Formerly with the CIA."

"You're CIA?"

Jenny made a face like she had a bad taste in her mouth. "_Was_. I quit. Seven months ago. And, no-" she continued, anticipating Gibbs' next question "-It's not on my record."

"Why's that?"

The red-head shrugged. "The CIA doesn't like loose ends. I was involved in some pretty deep crap."

"Change of identity?"

Jenny shook her head. "Just a clean slate, so to speak. I'm staying with a couple of college girlfriends until I can figure out what I'm going to do with myself."

"So you've taken up _secretarying_?" Gibbs scoffed, skeptical.

"No. I've been . . . doing some entreprenuering."

"For who?"

Jenny shrugged. "For whoever's holding the paycheck, I guess. I didn't agree with some of the CIA's . . . methods of gathering intel, so I went solo."

Jenny's mouth pursed, like she was biting back sharper words or suppressing bad memories.

"And who's the one holding the paycheck right now?" Gibbs tried to sound casual. Jenny folded her arms and sat back in her chair, unimpressed.

"I may not be with the government anymore, but I _do_ know my rights, Jethro, and-"

"Would you rather I arrested you?"

Jenny remained nonplussed. "Where's your warrant?"

Gibbs was spitting mad, pissed in a way that he only got when kids were involved in a case. "I've already got you for impersonating a federal agent," he said, deadly calm, "and the murder of Inez Newcomb. And-"

Jenny's head jerked up in surprise. Her mug of coffee toppled, but she did nothing to prevent the spill. Instead she repeated, "Inez Newcomb?"

"Vance's secretary. She was-"

"Killed. Couple of days ago. Bullet to the head, muffled by a couch cushion. Cats all over the place, right?"

Gibbs groaned. "This is not helping your case," he warned.

"No," Jenny cut in forcefully, "you don't understand. I was hired to investigate her a couple of weeks ago. My client thought she might have been involved in something shady, and I was checking it out. I applied at the school in hopes of meeting the woman!"

"Your client?" Gibbs repeated. "And that would be . . who, exactly?"

Jenny sighed and stood, retrieving a dish towel from the kitchen and beginning to sop up the puddle of coffee. "Gimme a break, Jethro. Haven't you ever heard of client-private investigator confidentiality?"

"Jenny," Gibbs said urgently, reaching out a hand and snatching away the cloth, "Ziva David and Tony DiNozzo went missing last night."

Jenny stopped attempting to yank the towel out of his hand abruptly. "Ziva's last name is Dah-veed?"

He nodded, eyes on her face. "Why?"

The red-head cocked her head, looking slightly confused. "My client is Eli Dah-veed. Is there a connection?"

Gibbs' gut clenched in a tell-tale indication that things had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

"Eli David is Ziva's father," he said grimly, getting to his feet. "Go get changed. You're coming back to NCIS with me."

Jenny crossed her arms, apparently entertaining thoughts of resisting arrest. Gibbs sighed in exasperation.

"You're not under arrest, Jen. I just need you to talk to my boss. We're going to have a couple questions for Director David. . . "

...

"Truth or dare?"

Ziva picked her head up off the thankfully cool glass of the window long enough to glare at Tony with dulled eyes and flushed cheeks. "No."

DiNozzo sighed. "Obviously _somebody_ does not understand the rules of Truth or Dare. It's one or the other. 'No' is not an acceptable answer."

"I have a knife," Ziva retorted without much venom. "Stop talking."

"You are violating the Truth or Dare code, Ziva," Tony said calmly. "Pick or pay the price."

Ziva didn't answer, and Tony's knuckles whitened as he gripped the car steering wheel tightly. _Keep her talking, keep her talking . . . _

"All American girls play this game. It's essential in your education. I'm afraid I'm going to have to start playing Justin Bieber on my iPod unless you play fairly," he cautioned.

"He is the good-looking one, yes? With the high-pitched voice?" Ziva's voice lacked both interest and energy.

If they hadn't been fleeing for their lives, Tony would have slammed on the brakes to further emphasize his astonishment. "You did not just say that."

"He _does_," Ziva argued, lifting her head slightly. "The first time I heard him-"

"No, not _that_," he interrupted dismissively. "It's a world-wide common truth that the Biebster sounds like a girl. But you said he was _good-looking_?"

"He has nice hair," she answered vaguely, slumping back once more. Tony choked on his tongue and spent several seconds wheezing dramatically for her benefit.

"Okay, now I _know _you're delirious!"

Ziva didn't answer, and Tony immediately lost all pretenses of interest in Justin Bieber.

"Ziva. Hey. Ziva. Talk to me."

The car hit yet another rut in the dirt road as they flew along at top speed, trees flashing by like a videotape on fast-forward.

She sighed. "Truth."

Slightly relieved, Tony set in with the questions that had been bubbling through his mind since he got bashed with a gun and woke up in the trunk of a car. The hit to the head seemed to have loosened the filter between his brain and his mouth, because suddenly words were pouring out like a verbal Niagara Falls.

"How come you have scars all over? Why is Gibbs protecting you? What's with your super-secret-ninja skills? Did you really want me to shoot that guy? Like, kill him? How come-"

Ziva cut in, sitting up painfully and smirking through the obvious wince. "Now I think it is you who is breaking the rules."

Tony grit his teeth and stared out the windshield stonily. He was scared, he felt like a clueless idiot, and his best friend was sitting next to him, calmly and quietly bleeding through the make-shift bandages wrapped around her thigh.

"You shouldn't be questioning my knowledge of the rules of the game," he said finally, hating himself for being such a push-over even as he dropped the topic and adopted a jovial tone. "Who's the American here?"

"You have been to a lot of American slumber parties then? And painted your nails and watched . . . chicken flicks?"

"Chick flicks. And, no, they're not _my_ kind of sleepovers, if you know what I mean." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

She smiled wanly, and together they sank into an uncomfortable silence, which Ziva broke abruptly a moment or two later.

"Which scars?"

Tony tried not to convey his surprise, avoiding eye contact as he would do with a skittish wild animal. "You have more than one?"

She shrugged. "Perhaps. You were referring to the ones on my back?"

"Yeah. What happened?"

Ziva blew out a long breath and stared up through the moon roof. The sun was high now, the dashboard clock proclaiming that it was nearly noon.

"There was a fire."

"In Israel?"

"Yes. We were at the house in Tel Aviv. My father was away on business. My sister and I were helping Ima, my mother, by making dinner. Ima was in her room. She was not feeling well."

Tony was startled into looking away from the road. "You have a sister?"

Ziva didn't answer. "My father had just been promoted. Deputy Director Eli David. It is . . . an important position. A dangerous one. Positions of power often are."

Glancing at his friend, Tony was fairly certain that the dark-haired girl was feverish. Her cheeks, so pale before, were flushed a vibrant scarlet. He wondered if he should stop pressing her for answers.

But he wasn't sure he knew who Ziva was anymore, because the lies kept building up, spinning together like a twisted, tangled mess of spider webs. If this was the only way she would tell the truth, he would not miss his opportunity.

"How'd the fire start?" he asked, eyes on the lazy, swooping circles that the hawk overhead was etching into the arched cathedral of the sky.

"Like any other." Ziva shrugged. "With a spark. I was the one who found it."

"Found what?" he asked, confused.

"I went into the basement to get flour. It was right there at the foot of the stairs. Tali saw it from the doorway."

"Tali was your sister?"

Ziva nodded. "She was only thirteen, but she did not scream. I told her to go wake Ima. I thought I could diffuse it."

Things fell into place with a sharp, painful click of clarity. "A bomb?"

"I know how," she explained. "I had done it before. Abba taught me. I thought I could do it again."

"It's not your fault," he agreed immediately. He was immensely confused, but there was something harshly incriminating in Ziva's accented voice that made him anxious to defend her against herself.

She just shook her head, forcing her mouth into a bitterly ironic echo of a smile. "I could not do it. I ran. I made it halfway up the stairs. The blast threw me against the wall. I hit my head."

He didn't know what to say, so instead he pried a stiff, white-knuckled hand off the steering wheel and reached over to squeeze Ziva's own hand. She pulled away sharply.

"I woke in the hospital. The house had burnt down. The roof had collapsed."

"Your- your mom-"

"Dead." She said the words crisply, calmly, and Tony could almost pretend she was just telling a particularly frightening ghost story as long as he didn't look her in the eyes. "Tali, too."

The silence hung heavy, and Tony hated himself for breaking it the moment his mouth opened. "And your dad?"

"He is alive. In Israel. Directing Mossad. In two years I will enlist in the Israeli Defense Forces. And then I will join Mossad as well."

"Or you could stay here?" Tony offered tentatively. "Go to college, get a job, settle down . . . "

"My father is working with NCIS to track down the bomber," Ziva said flatly. "He is a Marine who went missing in Afghanistan last year. They thought he was dead until now."

"Home-grown terrorist?"

"Or a bomber-for-hire. It does not matter. Either way, until we find him I am to remain in America, under NCIS's protection."

"And then?"

Ziva's eyes glittered - dark, dark, dark - against scarlet cheeks. "And then we kill him."

There was nothing else to say after that, and so they drove in silence until Tony's phone, which he had recovered from the pocket of one of the unconscious kidnappers, flashed green.

They had service.


	19. Chapter 19

**Well, here's the Tony/Gibbs bonding time I've been promising for quite a few chapters now. But I lied about the McAbby. Yah. Bad me and all that. I just got mucho caught up whilst delving into the mind of Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and didn't have room for it. Next chapter, okay? I promise. You can throw things at me if I don't follow through. That's always nice, right?**

**Thanks, as always, for all the fantastic reviews. You have no idea how much happier I get each time an email pops up with a review alert. Seriously. It makes my day. Let's keep it up, shall we? The reviews motivate me to write faster! :-)**

**My disclaimer has disappeared under mysterious circumstances involving Miss Scarlett, a rope, and the dining room. And I may have been there. Possibly egging Miss Scarlett on. And then burning down the mansion to destroy all evidence of my involvement . . . But let's not get into that, shall we? *smiles innocently* Read and Review, por favor! :-)**

In the dark of the basement with only a single bare bulb casting ghost-like shadows across the walls, with sawdust in the air and bourbon still burning in the back of his throat, Gibbs could almost pretend that the past day was nothing more than a nightmare, or perhaps an episode of some cheesy cop TV show.

It would have been nice to retreat briefly from the harsh reality of it all, only it seemed that Gibbs had no escape. Upstairs, footsteps on the creaky hallway floorboards were a constant reminder of the agent patrolling the ground floor.

Ziva was so drugged on pain killer that she hadn't awoken, for the first night since Gibbs had moved in, in a frenzied terror from nightmares.

DiNozzo had taken up an eerily silent residence on the couch.

Gibbs hadn't quite been able to forget the brief instant of hurt green eyes when he informed the boy that his father would prefer if he did not return home that night. Offering the couch was the least he could do.

The house was silent, apart from the footsteps above, and still Gibbs could not sleep.

He was in trouble, and he knew it.

First of all, there was the matter of Miss Ziva David, whom Gibbs had, without a doubt, underestimated drastically.

Eli David had done no one but himself a favor by agreeing to put his daughter under government protection, that was for sure.

Gibbs knew what girls were like, having briefly fathered one of his own, and he had surmised early on that Ziva would not take kindly to twenty-four hour protection. Someone as intensely closed off as she might even be spurred into running away under that kind of attention.

And so the two had reached some sort of unspoken agreement: Ziva would live her own life, choose her own friends, do as she pleased - anything else would only have raised suspicion - and Gibbs would simply supervise, occasionally putting a foot down, making shabby attempts at dinner each night.

It had not been entirely unpleasant. Gibbs had even found himself growing accustomed to conversation at the dinner table, growing fond of the girl. Ziva, for all her quirks and faults and attitude problems, was not a bad kid.

But 'like' was one thing, trust was another. Gibbs had secretly imbedded a tracker chip in Ziva's favorite throwing knife, thinking it would allow him to tag her movements.

It was not until she went missing that he checked the locator. Its coordinates led him to the chip just fine; it was the fact that the chip was sitting on top of the refrigerator along with a broken pair of sunglasses, what looked suspiciously like a hand grenade, and a note that read 'Nice try' which put a damper on that whole plan.

Gibbs, despite his arrogance, knew when to admit fault, and this was such a moment. He had mistaken affection for trust, had allowed his emotions to overrule his judgment. And where had that put him when Ziva went missing?

And then there was the matter of Jenny.

Jenny, who had red hair, a fondness for Italian food, and the most endearing way of crinkling her nose when she laughed.

Jenny, who was so deep in CIA crap that her entire past had been wiped clean like a hard-drive.

Jenny, who kept guns laying about as casually as Ziva did.

And, just as he had with Ziva, Gibbs had allowed himself to like the women, despite her being at the center of a tangled web of lies.

She had lied to him, he had lied to her. Ziva had lied to him, he had lied to her.

It was a twisted cycle, a painful one, and it made everything that much more confusing.

Just then the silence was broken by a hesitant knock on the basement door, which swung open to reveal a tussle-haired Tony DiNozzo, framed in a rectangle of the intrusively bright light of the upstairs hallway.

"Bathroom's the next door over," Gibbs told the boy without looking up from the rough beam of wood that he was slowly, patiently, perfecting.

"Yeah, I know. I've been here before, remember?"

Gibbs remembered, all right. Tony had attempted to introduce Ziva to the wonders of movie marathons, and had succeeded only in spilling an entire quart of diet Pepsi on the living room rug.

He continued to sand, throwing all of his weight into the repetitive action, waiting for DiNozzo to say whatever was on his mind.

The door closed quietly, preserving the darkness, and the stairs creaked under bare feet. Tony sat down on the bottom step, propped his chin up with a fist, and sighed loudly.

"She had a sister, did you know that?"

The 'she' was Ziva, Gibbs knew. He grunted noncommittally and kept sanding.

"She was only thirteen. Her sister, I mean. And she just . . . died. And she thinks it's her fault. Ziva, I mean. Ziva thinks it's her fault."

"There was nothing she could have done," Gibbs said finally, because it was the truth, and because Tony was looking at him appealingly, like he had all the answers, like he could fix it all as easily as he could smooth the imperfections from a piece of wood.

"Well, _yeah_. It was a bomb. If I saw a bomb I'd scream. And probably wet myself. And she tried to _disarm _the whole damn thing. She knew _how_. She'd _done_ it before!" Tony's voice was rising in incredulity with each word he spoke.

"She was raised differently than you were," Gibbs explained.

"That's what she told me," Tony agreed, dully nodding his head. "She said her dad trained her to be a psycho human weapon. But, y'know, she also told me her dad was _dead_. And that she was an only child. And _you _told me you were a gym teacher, and that you were going to fail me if I tried to talk to Miriam Walker ever again. I mean, what the hell? What is this - Lie to Tony DiNozzo Week . . . _Month_?"

"Miriam got a _concussion_ because she was staring at you while she was supposed to be playing dodge ball," Gibbs defended himself mildly. "It was for her own good."

"Really? I thought you were just exaggerating because you hated me." He sounded genuinely surprised, and Gibbs almost smiled despite himself.

"Her parents were threatening to sue."

"Well, my biceps are pretty illegal." Tony grinned a little bit and flexed a muscle before flopping back down again with a sigh and an audible _thunk_. "_Ow_. Damn it. You should really carpet these stairs."

"Carpet'd only get covered in sawdust."

"True," Tony conceded, craning his neck to get a better look at the structure slowly coming together under Gibbs' practiced hands, "What are you building in here anyway? A boat?"

He nodded and kept sanding.

Tony's brow furrowed. "How the hell are you gonna get the thing out of the basement?"

Gibbs smirked and chuckled a little bit to himself. "Ziva asked me the same thing."

The boy's face darkened and he sat back once more, banging his head on the railing for the second time. "_Ow_. . . So is it true? About Ziva?"

"Yep. Only she didn't say '_hell_.' She doesn't curse much."

Tony laughed. "Not in English, anyway. God, you should've heard her this morning. Cursing like a sailor with a hangover. But that wasn't what I meant."

Gibbs didn't answer immediately, weighing the matter over in his mind. This boy was a civilian, and not one he particularly liked _or_ trusted, but no one deserved to be lied to so blatantly after all the crap he'd been through today.

"Eli David is Ziva's father. Deputy Director of Mossad. Not a nice guy," he said finally. "Made a lot of enemies."

"And so they tried to kill him?"

Gibbs shook his head. "No. There are worse ways to get to a man. They went after his family instead. The house didn't burn down so much as it blew up. Ziva's lucky to have survived."

"And you think they'll try to go after her again?" Tony guessed shrewdly. "That guy she shot was after her, right? _That's_ why she shot him . . . So she lied to me about that, too."

"No. The guy she shot was Israeli. Working for her father. Director David decided he wanted his daughter back in Israeli and sent a man to collect her."

Tony smirked. "And she _shot_ him. Damn, and I thought _my_ fights with my dad were bad . . . "

Gibbs half-smiled, sympathizing completely. He hadn't talked to Jackson Gibbs since the funeral . . . "Well, your dad's not Eli David."

DiNozzo nodded wryly. "Nope. My dad wouldn't waste valuable money sending people after me if I went missing. He's got a woman with him, right? That's why I'm not allowed to go home."

He didn't know what to say, so he simply sighed. "Not everyone is cut out to be a father."

Tony snorted. "You got that right. . . Do you have kids, boss-man?"

Gibbs ignored the customary twinge of pain in the back of his chest and lied for the first time that evening. "Never had time."

Tony nodded. "Too busy intimidating freshmen and building boats while fighting crime and babysitting ninja-chicks, huh?"

Gibbs kept his eyes on his knuckles, gnarled and callused beyond their years, and scraped at the wood all the more violently. "Something like that," he heard himself say.

Tony said nothing more, and Gibbs didn't look up again until the bourbon had run dry and the fragments of morning were beginning to creak through the single, thick-paned glass window.

The boy was sprawled across the steps, mouth slightly open, sawdust crowning his hair like a dusty gold halo. Asleep, he looked no older than twelve and remarkably innocent.

Gibbs didn't have the heart to wake him.

**Do we liiiiiike? I like. A lot, actually. More than was expected. But anyway, it's what you think that counts, so don't hesitate to let me know! Seriously! Review or I'll set Professor Plum after you . . . And he has a lead pipe! **


	20. Chapter 20

**Well. Long time no see, huh? Well, not literally see . . . I mean, you see the words that I'm writing, but . . . This isn't going anywhere fast. So let's try again, shall we?**

**Hi, I'm Styx, and I'm a terrible updater. But the good thing is, my schedule's back to normal again. School play's over, homework's slowed down, and all's right in the world. Sleep will ensue, and thus I will not be too zonked to write. Yayy! Anyway, I bet you're mad at me. So to make up for this, and to celebrate my 20th chapter of this story, there's a surprise at the end. (Get excited! I am!)**

**Disclaimer: "When I was visiting China some time ago, I met a little Chinese girl named Plum Blossom, of whom I became very fond. Eventually we had unpremeditated romp in the rice, and I enjoyed it very much. Thank you." . . . Name that musicallll . . . GO!  
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"McHouston, we have a problem," Abby said solemnly, appearing out of nowhere and shoving McGee into the nearest empty classroom with her absurdly bony excuse for a shoulder.

McGee fixed Abby with accusatory eyes, and rubbed his ribs. "You, too?"

Abby blinked. McGee randomly noticed that she had sparkly stuff lining her upper eyelids. "Me, too . . . What?"

"You're using the McNicknames, too?" he elaborated, and attempted to sound indignant, even though he wasn't.

Truthfully, McGee wasn't very good at being indignant when Abby was concerned. Her sparkly eyeliner goop was really distracting.

Abby shrugged. Today she wore monochromatic camouflage skinny jeans tucked into black leather combat boots, which laced up to the middle of her thighs, and a very tight black tank top.

McGee wondered if he should have had some more coffee this morning - he was really having a very hard time focusing.

"Stop nitpicking, McGee. You can't deny that it was a good opening line, given the situation."

"What situation?"

Abby put her hands on her hips. Her nail polish was a fluorescent traffic-cone-orange today, and it clashed nicely with the collection of red and purple bracelets lining her pale arms.

"_The_ situation. Y'know, the one where our friends got _kidnapped_?"

Oh. _That_ situation.

"But they're okay, Abby," McGee said soothingly, and put a reassuring hand on his friend's arm before he could debate the wisdom of this. "Ziva's even coming to school today, right?"

"Not _that_ situation," the Goth sighed irritably. "I'm talking about the fact that the school's resident soul mates are no longer _speaking_ to each other."

McGee blinked, confused, and wondered why Abby hadn't nudged his hand off her arm yet. "Alison West and Joe Vasquez aren't speaking?"

Odd, given the fact that he'd seen the couple making out in the front seat of Joe's car as he walked into school . . .

Now Abby looked confused. "Who?"

"Alison West and Joe Vasquez," he repeated. "You know, homecoming king and queen since forever? Wear promise rings and make out in deserted stairwells during lunch . . . ?"

Abby looked disgusted. "Ew, no. They're just high school sweethearts. They'll be divorced within a year or two of marriage. I'm talking about our _friends_. Tony? Ziva? Ever heard of them? They were kidnapped during the concert over the weekend . . . "

So they were back on this topic again?

Honestly, McGee simply did not understand girls at all.

"But Tony and Ziva aren't even dating," he objected. "How could they be soul mates?"

"They're both too scared of commitment and generally oblivious to realize that they are _obviously_ meant for each other," she explained. "And now they're not even _speaking_, which kind of screws things up, doesn't it?"

"They're not speaking?"

Abby smacked a hand to her forehead dramatically. "For God's sake, McGee! Keep up!"

The warning bell rang, and Abby groaned. "Ugh. Now I'm gonna be late, and you weren't even that reassuring!" She sighed. "I guess we'll both just have to cut third period. I have art, so it's not like it matters. See you then!"

And then she ran from the room.

McGee sighed, scooped up his bag, and headed off for class, resigned to the widely acknowledged truth that boys would never understand _anything_ about the way a girl's mind worked.

He was late to class for the first time, like, _ever_. It made him feel kinda hard-core, even if he did get detention.

...

"Eli David, Deputy Director of Mossad, was investigating a middle-aged, crazy cat lady who worked as a high school receptionist?"

Mike laughed, unimpressed. Jenny tossed her head proudly, red hair as bright as the walls of the conference room, and answered:

"Indirectly, yes. I didn't know his daughter attended the school. I just knew he thought Inez Newcomb had _way_ too much money for a secretary. He was right, incidentally - secretary pay _sucks_."

"So you applied as a secretary, hoping to meet the woman?"

"Yes," Jenny agreed. "But I was told they didn't need another secretary. Naturally, I was suspicious when I was called on the first day of school and asked to sub in for the woman."

"So did you go to her house?" Franks asked, pacing as if they were in an interrogation room, as opposed to a conference room. "See her body?"

Jenny sighed, exasperated. "_No_. I snooped through her desk. I asked some of the teachers about her. I was trying to stay under the radar."

"How'd you find out she was dead?"

"I have some contacts in the police department. I asked around, got the details."

"What'd you tell Eli?" Franks took a seat across the table from her and crossed his arms, still looking skeptical.

"That she was dead, sounded like a professional hit. He-" Jenny looked up and met the man's eyes seriously "-he didn't sound terribly surprised."

"You think he was behind it?"

The red-head hesitated, then shrugged. "I don't know. I'd recently found some inconsistencies in her financial records. I had definite proof that she'd been tampering with student records, and when I told him he was pretty pissed."

Mike narrowed his eyes. "Define 'pissed.'"

Jenny bit her lip. "You know, his face got all hard and stiff-looking. Not anything dramatic, except that this is Eli David we're talking about. He doesn't _get_ pissed. Except . . . "

"Except?"

"The money she was wired was from a Navy SEAL . . . Um, Matthew Phillips. He went MIA in Afghanistan shortly after the transaction. David . . . His face looked like it was made of granite. I couldn't tell if he was angry or suffering from a heart attack."

Mike's entire body tensed, as if maybe he was believing the red-haired ex-CIA agent for the first time. "Matthew Phillips, the bomb tech?"

Jenny nodded. "Yes. I couldn't find much else on the guy . . . Is he important?"

The older man smiled wryly. "You could say that." He poked his head out the door, gestured over the nearest agent and said sharply, "I need you to look into how Inez Newcomb and Matthew Phillips might have met. And call Agent Gibbs, tell him I need to talk to him."

Turning back to Jenny, Mike asked, "About how long ago did Eli find out about Phillips?"

Jenny thought. "It was . . . Exactly a month ago, this coming Wednesday."

Mike nodded like his suspicions had been concerned. "Newcomb was killed the next day. Execution-style, very professional. No evidence. Typical Mossad."

Her eyes widened as she got to her feet. "You think . . . ?"

Mike shook his head, and held the door open politely as Jenny exited. "I know."

...

Gibbs hated his job.

His fake job, that is. His NCIS job . . . He didn't love it, so much that he _needed_ it. It was his existence. Without it, he was empty.

But being a gym teacher was neither fulfilling nor enjoyable. And today was the worst it had ever been.

Though he would never admit it, Gibbs had never hated his freshman gym class as much as he'd hated all the others for three sole reasons - Ziva David, Tony DiNozzo, and that oddly loveable Goth girl Abby Sciuto.

DiNozzo drove Gibbs mad with his constant flirting (particularly when Ziva was the subject of such advances) and easy athleticism, but today Gibbs found himself missing the constant stream of the boy's warped consciousness.

Tony was playing basketball with a fearsome intensity, face set, eyes very determinedly _not_ straying towards the bleachers were Ziva sat composedly.

Even Abby's participation, normally energetic if not terribly athletic, was lacking. The Goth's attention was divided between her two friends - so much so that she was nearly brained by the basketball at least twice.

Gibbs mentally groaned, mustered up any fragments of the father-figure he had briefly been, and moved to sit beside a stone-faced Ziva on the bleachers. "Hey," he said finally, when she did not acknowledge his presence. "How you doin'?"

She shrugged. "I am fine."

Gibbs doubted it. But he knew pressing the issue was not a good idea. So he nodded and leaned back against the wooden bench. "In pain?"

Ziva shook her head, eyes fixed on the window. "Not so much anymore."

Another lie, he knew, but he let it go.

"How's DiNozzo?"

Ziva's poker face twitched for the first time. "Fine."

"Really. Concussion's not giving him problems, is it?"

She hesitated. "I- I . . . Do not . . . I don't know," she admitted finally. "He is . . . not speaking to me."

He was a bit surprised. DiNozzo? Not speaking? Like, _at all_? . . . That was a new one.

"Why's that?" he asked, as Ziva did not appear to be offering any further explanations.

The Israeli girl sucked in a deep, pained breath as she shifted her injured leg uncomfortably. "He is being unreasonable."

Gibbs smirked. "Well this _is_ DiNozzo we're talking about."

Ziva David didn't smile.

...

Eli David didn't smile.

"I do not think I care for what you are insinuating, Agent Franks," the Israeli man said sharply. His face, thought Mike, really did resemble a sharp-featured, hard-eyed carving.

"You knew Inez Newcomb was in contact with Matthew Phillips. You knew she had access to your daughter's records - her address, her guardians. She was killed the day after you found all this out, Director," Mike said bluntly. "I'm not _insinuating_. I'm _accusing_."

"You have no proof," Eli said crisply, composedly. There was no emotion in his eyes. "Now, tell me, have you any _real_ evidence in regards to my daughter's abduction?"

"We have forensics running everything collected from the cabin in the woods," Mike said finally, seeing that he was getting nowhere. "We've interviewed the kids. Nothing. Your daughter's recuperating just fine."

Eli nodded. "I would expect nothing less from my daughter. She has been taught to deal with great levels of pain."

Mike wondered how exactly this cold-eyed man had _'trained_' his sixteen-year-old daughter. He found no answers, only disgust.

"We'll let you know when we find something," he said finally, and terminated the video link.

...

McGee was eating . . . _something_ involving gray paste-like sauce and meat of some variety when she heard the ruckus.

Tony DiNozzo and Ziva David were standing in the middle of the lunch-line, each seemingly attempting to break the sound barrier with their shouts.

Ziva's hands were on her hips. Her lunch tray had fallen, forgotten, to the floor. There was gray, goopy gravy pooling around DiNozzo's absurdly expensive sneakers.

Tony was wielding his lunch tray like a shield, like he was half terrified that Ziva was about to dismember him with a plastic serving spoon, but that did not stop him from bellowing back at the top of his lungs.

"_Timmy_!"

Abby flew across the lunch room in her combat boots and distractingly skimpy shirt, pigtails sailing behind her like glossy black banners.

"Ohmygosh, Tim, is this not the most romantic thing you have ever witnessed in your entire freaking career as a mildly geeky high school student?"

McGee wasn't sure how to take this. But it was Abby, and her shirt had ridden up, exposing a silver naval piercing, and so he couldn't find it in him to get offended.

"Romantic? They're _arguing_. I think they're trying to burst each other's eardrums . . . " he said finally.

Abby rolled her eyes. "It's adorable. Look, I'll give you a play-by-play. First Tony said, 'Hey.' And then Ziva said, 'Hello.' And then- . . . Why are you laughing?"

Abby's generic male voice, which hit octaves of a depth that McGee could not fathom, as well as her atrocious Israeli accent were the cause of the laughter. Tim tried to explain, except just then somebody gasped.

...

"Hey," said Tony before he could stop himself.

Ziva turned slowly. Her hair was pulled back in a long, intricate French braid that emphasized the heart-shape of her face. "Hello."

He shifted from foot to foot, wondering where exactly he'd been going with this. "How's your . . . You know." He gestured vaguely at her injured leg, wrapped in disappointingly loose-fitting cargo pants.

Ziva's face got even stiffer, if that was possible. She reached out and accepted the plate of goop that the lunch lady was holding out absent-mindedly, eyes locked on Tony's face. "I am fine. And your head?"

He forced himself to smile. "I'm as sane as ever."

She did not smile back. "Hmmm . . . "

"So . . . " He waved away the gunky gray meat that the lunch lady held out. "So, I was thinking we could . . . talk?" His bold statement ended in a weak, high-pitched question mark.

Ziva's withering eyebrows were nearly enough to send him running, but he had a sudden and inexplicable image of a bloodied, fever-flushed Ziva David in the passenger seat. He grit his teeth, snatched up the nearest sandwich in sight, and tried again.

"I'll even buy you your own donut." He pulled his brightest, cheeriest grin.

"And what is their to talk about?" she asked bluntly, crossing her arms and pursing her lips.

Tony laughed, though with very little humor. "Oh, I don't know. I thought maybe we could continue our little game of Truth or Dare?"

She stiffened painfully. "There is nothing to tell."

And he laughed again, bitterly, almost enjoying the hurt on her face. "Says the girl who told me she was an only child when-"

Ziva's hands flew to her hips, her tray of goopy meat crap clattering to the floor, and she snapped, "We are not going to talk about that!"

"Oh, no? Then when, Ziva? The next time I think you're about to die?"

"Do not exaggerate," she retorted, matching his volume, "I was fine."

"Well I don't know what the hell your definition of fine is," he yelled back, "but the ER doctors sure didn't think you were fine!"

"I do not know why you care," she seethed, "considering that you have been avoiding me ever since-"

"Me?" He barked. "Avoiding you? _You_ were avoiding _me_! And of course I _cared_. How could I not?"

"You shouldn't care!" she returned fiercely. "I put you in danger, you shouldn't-"

"I shouldn't . . . What, I shouldn't hang out with you anymore? I shouldn't have your back? I should just save my own butt?"

"_Yes_!" Ziva actually _did_ stamp her foot, splashing goopy gray glue onto the hemline of his jeans.

Tony couldn't seem to think of anything to say to such a truly _idiotic_ statement. " . . . Well, okay, _bye_ then. You can just leave the car in my driveway. And return all my DVDs or I'll sue. Nice meeting you, then."

Ziva made a noise of exasperation and turned away, whipping her braid into his face.

Maybe it was the airborne fumes of that decidedly inedible gray crap, or maybe it was the fact that Ziva's braid smelled faintly of pomegranate shampoo, but suddenly Tony lost all touch with his rational senses.

Before he knew what he was doing he had reached out and yanked Ziva back by her braid, tilting her face up to his and crushing her lips with his own.

Several people gasped. Ziva stiffened, but he hooked his pointer fingers through the loops of her braid and did not pull away until she ground the heel of her boot into his toes.

"Ow!" he yelped. "Damn it, Ziva! That _hurt_!"

"You," she panted, crossing her arms and looking pleasantly flushed, "are not allowed to _do_ that!"

"I like breaking rules," he told her, and stepped tentatively out of the puddle of gravy. "Want to go find a closet and-"

She stamped on his foot again, then smiled as he hissed in pain. "Yes."

"Y-yes?" he repeated in disbelief.

She removed her heel from his toes, playfully brushed her lips against his jaw, and then turned away. "Yes."

He handed his sandwich back to the bemused lunch lady without another word and took after the Israeli girl.

The lunch room sat in a stunned silence for a moment or two before someone who sounded suspiciously like Abigail Sciuto cheered. "It's about time!"

**Surprise! ****Gah. I keep spelling surprise wrong, and then I have to change it. There's a sneaky 'r' in there, in case you didn't know. See? Who says fanfiction ain't educational, eh? What with all of our proper grammatical skills and all that delovely stuff. ****Anywhooo...**

**Yeah, random inspiration led to the Tiva you all have been waiting for. Random inspiration being that my two friends have finally decided to do as destiny has commanded and get together. Awkwardness ensues (for me, I mean) and so my writing does weird things. Like Tiva. In closets. And also goopy hot lunch.**

**P.S. This is Chapter 20. So you have to review. You have to. DO IT! I want favorite lines, etc. Right now. Or you will be eaten by a large, wooden nutcracker with an itchy faux-fur beard and poor dental hygiene. **

**Love and all that, Styx!**


	21. Chapter 21

**So. What with all the shippery, fluffy nonsense that this chapter is comprised of, I think it's easily one of my favorites. Plus it means I finally conquered that pesky bit of writer's block I've been suffering from. So enjoy and tell me whether or not you like where I'm going with Tony and Ziva. Thanks!**

**Disclaimer - (insert witty comment of your own choice HERE)**

McGee really needed to stop breathing through his nose.

This was proving difficult, however, because there was a straw between his lips and a chocolate milkshake before him on the table top that would not be ignored.

The problem was that Abby was dabbling with new perfumes again, after running some lab tests and discovering that there was one offensive, multi-syllabic chemical or another masquerading behind the lavender in her every-day perfume.

Yesterday she'd smelt like honeysuckle. Today she smelt like vanilla and cherries.

And the thing was, once McGee got to smelling the vanilla-cherry scent he got distracted.

Abby's conversationals were hard to track on a good day, and now McGee found himself wallowing in a muck of exuberant, over-enunciated chatter that was virtually impossible to follow.

McGee took another sip of his milkshake and watched the expressive maneuvers of Abby's pale, long-fingered hands.

"And, I mean, I'm happy for them and all, but if they're going to go all 'sugary-sweet, obsessively demonstrative' on me, I'm going to have to do something. I mean, we're their friends! And I totally support their love life! But not if it means shutting everyone else out! I mean, that's reasonable, right?"

Abby turned and blinked her eyes at McGee appealingly. He swallowed his mouthful of melty chocolate milkshake and agreed obediently, wondering what exactly he was concurring with her about.

She smiled, satisfied, and briefly squeezed his hand as she stole the shake away from him. "You don't mind sharing, do you?"

Without waiting for an answer, the young Goth took a long sip, red lips curving around the straw into a smile. "Mmm... This is _so_ good. . . Okay, I'm done dieting. I mean, chocolate's good for you anyway, right? Be right back, I'm gonna go order one for me!"

Abby scurried off, leaving Tim to survey the smear of red lipstick that now marked the edge of his straw. Eventually he shrugged and resumed sipping the frozen delicacy, secretly marveling at his lips and Abby's touching the same surface.

...

"We are going to be late," said Ziva, with an admirable attempt at a stern tone of voice.

"Hmmm . . . " said Tony incoherently, pressing his lips to the golden hollow of smooth skin behind Ziva's ear. The Israeli girl's eyes temporarily fluttered closed, dark lashes shadowing her cheekbones.

"Abby will be angry."

Her tone was slightly breathless, and Tony smiled against her skin, pleased at the effect he had over the seemingly invincible girl.

Ziva swatted at him half-heartedly as his lips traveled down the curve of her jaw line. "Tony-"

He moved on to her lips, smiling again as all the fight went out of his irritatingly punctual friend-who-was-a-girl-but-not-his-girlfriend-despite-the-fact-that-they-made-out-on-occasion.

Actually, over the length of the week ensuing the first dramatic kiss in the cafeteria, the make-out sessions had done nothing but increase in frequency, and had been joined by a great deal of cuddling, mocking pet names, and four spectacularly embarrassing bowling games in which Tony had had his head handed to him. Ziva's overly-hyphenated title was only growing in length, to a point where even Tony himself was confused.

Ziva pulled back abruptly and flopped back onto the car's leather seat looking adorably breathless and slightly red-cheeked. "We are going to be late."

Tony reached over and laced his fingers through hers. Ziva's hand was oddly small in his. Several dark curls had broken free from her ponytail. She was smiling slightly, and there was a sudden rush of fierce affection in his gut.

He was scared suddenly, for a reason he could not define.

"Fine, fine, Ms. Punctual," he said finally, hiding his discomfort behind a teasing grin. He ruffled her hair with his free hand, partly to be obnoxious and partly because he had a weird fixation with her curls, and started the car. "Don't blame me if we're late, though."

Ziva looked affronted. "Who else would I blame? It is you who insisted on 'buckling my seat belt' for me-"

Tony interrupted approvingly. "Whoa. You just did finger quotation marks, babe. You're finally assimilating!"

Ziva accepted his celebratory bro-fist with a slight half-smile of pride. Again, Tony got that weird, clenching feeling in his chest. "Do not call me '_babe_' unless you wish for me to start calling you '_sweety_' again. And do not change the subject."

"What were we talking about again, light of my life?"

"Sexual harassment, _honey_."

"It's not sexual harassment if you retaliate. After all, I seem to recall you initiating the lip-to-lip contact, princess."

Ziva crinkled her nose. "Only after you started violating my personal space, _darling_."

"I fell," Tony returned innocently.

"On top of me?" she inquired in polite disbelief, raising an eyebrow. He grinned back.

"I have good aim."

She laughed, pressed another brief kiss to his lips, and then eyed her watch. "Perhaps Abby can wait another five minutes or s-"

Tony beamed, nearly said something very stupid, and quickly recovered by pulling the keys from the ignition and turning all his attention to his friend-who-was-a-girl-but-not-his-girlfriend-despite-several-admittedly-enjoyable-kisses-for-whom-he-might-just-have-feelings.

...

Abby was beginning to pout, red lips jutting adorably under a strawberry milk mustache which Tim liked far too much to sentence to death by alerting Abby to its presence, as she checked her watch once again. "They're late."

McGee checked his watch as well. "They're only three minutes late, Abs. Maybe they hit traffic."

Abby frowned, crossed her arms, and stuck her lower lip out even farther. "Ziva's never late."

"And Tony's always late," he countered. "So I guess they kinda balance each other out, you know?"

She smiled slightly, and plunked down her tall, frosted glass of strawberry ice-cream. "Timothy McGee, I do declare, you just said something romantic!" she exclaimed in a mock-Southern accent.

He grimaced. "Being around the two of them is doing things to my head," McGee lamented. "You know I find myself speaking without contractions sometimes. Sarah always makes fun of me."

Abby smiled and meditatively stirred her pink milkshake with her straw. "I think it's cute," she pronounced, nodding and making her pigtails bob.  
>McGee flushed as pink as Abby's milk mustache. He opened his mouth - to say what, he did not know - but was saved by the timely, if tardy, arrival of Tony and Ziva.<p>

DiNozzo sprang from the driver's seat of the turquoise Mustang the moment he had pulled to a stop outside the diner and raced around to the passenger door. He opened the door with a courtly bow just as Ziva reached for the handle.

The Israeli girl scowled and punched his arm in thanks, then narrowed her eyes and dashed for the front door, Tony hot on her heels.

After a brief scuffle, a victorious Ziva yanked open the glass door of the diner with a smirk, letting it slam in Tony's face behind her.

Abby clambered to her knees on the red leather booth and waved her arms to catch their friends' attention. "Tony! Ziva! Hi! We're over here! You're late!" she called in rapid-fire.

The two sauntered off, squabbling all the while over the difference between sexism and chivalry, which - according to Ziva - was nonexistent.

"Hey, Abs," said DiNozzo, lazily wrapping the freshman in a one-armed hug. "You've got a milk mustache."

Abby immediately turned on Tim furiously, scrubbing at her upper lip with the back of her hand. "Why didn't you tell me?"

McGee shrugged. "I didn't notice." Privately, he mourned the departure of the faintly pink smudge.

"I am sorry we are late," Ziva said, sliding into the booth beside DiNozzo. "We were being followed, and Tony is not particularly adept at shaking a tail. I had to intervene."

Tony nodded, and McGee noted for the first time the slightly green tinge around the older boy's mouth. "She did something to a nerve in my shoulder and my whole arm went numb and then she grabbed the steering wheel and almost killed us . . . what, seven times?"

Ziva shrugged nonchalantly, craning her neck in an attempt to catch the eye of a waitress. "I do not enjoy having my father monitor my life."

Tim's brow furrowed. "It was Mossad?"

Ziva nodded, looking unenthused as she continued trying to wave over someone to take their order. "Yes. NCIS is in the navy sedan idling at the jewelry store across the street. This car is a new addition."

Tony shook his head, easily caught the attention of the nearest young waitress, and then turned his attention back to his non-girlfriend. "You are so much more intimidating than is strictly necessary."

Ziva simply shrugged and eyed the perky waitress' slightly flirtatious smile sourly. Tim and Abby politely pretended not to notice when Tony took Ziva's hand beneath the table.

Abby allotted the three a moment of silence upon the waitress' departure before clearing her throat pointedly. "So. Who wants to hear my awesome plan for school domination?"

"Are we trying to kill someone?" Ziva inquired casually, looking interested. Tony banged an emphatic, flat-handed palm down on the table top.

"There you go again, being overly aggressive. Do you enjoy presenting yourself as a psychopathic thrill junkie with a violence fixation?"

"Ahem."

McGee watched in sympathetic amusement as Abby attempted to regain the attention of the bickering couple.

"As I was _saying_, I have a plan," Abby said finally. "And I need your help. No killing people. Probably. Everything we'd be doing is legal. I think. Plus Michelle Lee would totally defend us in court if we got arrested, and she's on the debate team, so we wouldn't be convicted. Most likely."

Tony looked confused. Tim eyed the beginnings of another milk mustache tracing the delicate lines of Abby's upper lip. Ziva shrugged.

"I am in."

Abby high-fived the older girl, nearly toppling her glass in the process, and turned her expectant gaze on the two boys. "Well?"

"Tony will do it," Ziva said firmly, deliberately shifting closer to her non-boyfriend as the flirty waitress reappeared, laden with tall glasses of thick, chocolate shake. "Right, _babe_?"

DiNozzo grinned cheerily, thanked the waitress, and took a sip of Ziva's shake before handing it to her. "Whatever you say, Sugar-Lips."

Abby exchanged smirks and a fond eye-roll with McGee before arching a dark, questioning eyebrow at him. "You in, McGee?"

The milk mustache was back in all its pink glory. McGee grinned. "Anything for you, Abs."

**Th-th-that's all, folks! *Dramatic, deep announcer's voice-over* What does Abby have planned? Will Tony and Ziva finally get around to talking about their feelings? (lol, yeah right) Will Styx finally decide where she's going with this case and give Gibbs a break-through? Tune in next week (or whenever I get around to updating this again, maybe sooner than next week, since I'm officially on Spring Break starting tomorrow) to find out on . . . Highschool Hazards! Which really should be spelled 'High School Hazards' with a space only Styx is stupid and lazy so shut up!**

**Oh. Review. Do it or the announcer man comes and keeps up a running monologue of your every action in his obnoxiously deep and velvety voice. **


	22. Chapter 22

**Yeeeah... That update? That was supposed to happen like two weeks ago?... Heh. Funny story. Real life drama and homework and a brief excursion into another fandom and... Anyway. Here you go. Tiva schtuff. McAbby schtuff. Jibbs pasta. Okay. **

**My disclaimer got mauled by a flesh-eating parakeet. And then eaten by my nonexistent dog. Along with my homework. And then my baby brother ate the dog. And there was a lot of traffic. And I had a head cold. Plus I spilled coffee on it. So basically, nope.  
><strong>

From his position, hanging upside-down off his living room couch with his head brushing the absurdly expensive carpet he constantly spilled soy sauce on, Tony DiNozzo had a perfect view of his non-girlfriend's exasperated face.

Ziva was pacing the length of the room, carefully ensuring her bare feet stomped down vindictively on every single one of those creepy, flesh-colored rosebuds that served as the rug's border, and yammering away in one language or another.

Tony threw a grape at her, as her brown ankles angrily marched through his sight-line once again, because this was getting ridiculous.

This was _his_ house and she was _his_ non-girlfriend, and the fact that she had painted her toenails a soft shade of turquoise that made her skin glow gold really made him want to kiss her.

Tony ate another grape, and idly noted that Ziva was no longer speaking Hebrew, but something that sounded like Spanish. He attempted to grab at her legs - possibly to tackle her to the floor or possibly just to cop a feel, he wasn't quite sure as he was now feeling distinctly dizzy - and received a heel to the jaw for his efforts.

"Ow. That wasn't nice."

"Shhh," she hissed, and then hastily growled into the phone, "No, Abba, not you- But why can we not speak English? I-"

She broke off, dug her heel into a rosebud with malicious relish, and then started up again in . . . French? Tony couldn't even tell at this point.

He selected a couple more grapes from the bowl that sat on the floor beside his head and lopsidedly hucked them at Ziva as she made yet another resolution around the rug. She ignored him stonily.

Damn that ninja poker face.

Now she was speaking in Italian. Tony groaned loudly and began to scrutinize the fleshy pink rosebud that was blooming on the rug near his face. It sorta looked like a fat, creepy baby's face from this angle.

"Abba! Abba, I can't- Abba, I do not speak Russian!" Ziva snapped into the phone, coming to a halt and anxiously tracing a circle into the rug's surface with a toe. "I do not know what you are saying- Abba!"

After another second, during which Tony could hear someone yelling in a foreign language through the telephone, Ziva snapped shut her cell phone and regarded it stonily.

Tony flinched slightly when she abruptly hurled the electronic device across the room with all the angry force in her small frame. She stood, stiff with fury for a moment, then flopped down onto the creepy baby-faced rug with a groan.

"He has a tendency to switch languages mid-sentence when he is angry," she explained, stretching her limbs like she was making snow angels in the middle of his living room, curls scattering around her head like a dark halo. "Normally I can keep up, but he always forgets that I do not speak Russian."

Tony nodded sympathetically as best he could from his upside-down position and fumbled around until his fingers closed around the cool porcelain of the bowl. "Grape?" he offered.

She absent-mindedly accepted a handful of the fuscia fruit. Tony studied her for a moment, eyeing the angry lines of her forehead, then set the bowl down. "C'mere."

Ziva wrinkled her nose suspiciously. "Why?"

"I want to see if I can kiss you while I'm upside-down," he explained breezily. "Y'know, for the sake of science."

She gave him a grudging smile. "Well, if it is for a good cause . . . " she mused.

"Oh, the best," Tony assured her. "Now get over here before I pass out from all the blood that my brain must be drowning in my now."

...

Tim McGee didn't think he'd ever been so embarrassed before in his life. Even the time that he'd gotten car sick during Sarah's birthday road trip to Hershey Park and vomited directly in his the lap of his sister's best friend was nothing compared to how completely, utterly humiliated he was right now.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, cheeks flaming so red that he could literally feel the heat radiating from his face, and glanced at Abby.

The Goth sat serenely at the desk beside his, in all her pigtailed glory, smelling sweetly of sugar cookies and excitement. She caught his eye and beamed, one knee jiggling beneath the desk as if her energy simply could not be contained.

There was a couple of girls a few rows down who were eyeing Abby's outfit and tittering among themselves, but Abs was serenely feigning indifference to such an effect that McGee wondered if she was even really acting at all.

He envied the freshman her coolly self-possessed nature, which allowed her to dress and act as she pleased, regardless of anyone else's opinions. It was something he had never been good at himself, preferring instead to lurk in the school's social background and live as he pleased only in the guarded recesses of his own room.

Abby grinned and perked up as the bored-looking teacher at the white board asked if anyone had any suggestions. Her hand flew into the air so rapidly that McGee was surprised she hadn't dislocated her shoulder in the process. "Ooh!"

"Yes, Miss . . . ?"

"Sciuto," she supplied cheerfully. "And I have an idea. So I know that Halloween isn't for another couple weeks, but personally I am _totally_ sick of the whole 'starry night', 'old Hollywood' schpeal, so I was thinking-"

"_Ehmygawd_," interrupted a snooty-looking brunette with hoop earrings so massive that Tim was surprised her earlobes weren't stretched. "You did _not_ just bash the 'Old Hollywood' theme. That was _my_ idea last year, and it wasn't _my_ fault that that _jerk_ DiNozzo spiked the punch-"

"Oh, no," Abby cut back in sympathetically. "I wasn't bashing it. And I'm sure it was great. I just want this year to be even better, y'know?"

The brunette wasn't listening. "I mean, I _you_ he did it _just_ to piss me off because I dumped his ass a week before Homecoming! And to think I actually _liked_ him-"

"Um," said a bored-eyed ginger, "Tony told me _he_ dumped _you_."

"It was mutual," sniffed earring-girl.

"He said you cried," continued the red-head conversationally. "And trashed his car."

The huge earrings quivered indignantly. "It was _mutual_! And that was totally a mistake! I wasn't _trying_ to hit his car with the bat. I just wanted to, y'now, release my aggression! On, like, air! The charges were _totally_ cleared! How do you even _know_ this anyway?"

The red-head sobered. "He said he broke up with you for me," she admitted sulkily. "And then he broke up with _me_ for _Layne_. And then he broke up wit-"

"He did _not_ break up with me!" interrupted the fluffy-haired blonde who was doodling on her notebook with a red sharpie. "We're, like, in love, Savannah!"

The red-head looked disgusted. "Speaking of charges, did DiNozzo get a freaking restraining order for you yet?"

Layne threw down the sharpie angrily. "Of course not! Do you not get that we're _in love_? You're just jealous because he totally _dumped_ you _both_ for _me_!"

The brunette was on her feet. "IT WAS MUTUAL!"

Abby stood, carefully pushing in her chair, and motioned with her head for Tim to follow, making her pigtails swing. She politely handed a sheaf of neatly-lettered papers to the weary-eyed teacher at the board. "This is a general summary of my color scheme and theme ideas," she explained cheerfully. "There's a sketch on page three and a tentative price estimation on page five. Hope that helps!"

The teacher blinked and accepted the small booklet of lined papers. Abby waved cheerfully to the bickering trio and skipped from the room with Tim on her heels.

"Timothy McGee, we just won ourselves a prom!"

...

"So what'd your dad want?" Tony questioned, flipping channels idly and pretending he wasn't totally caught up in wrapping Ziva's curls around his fingers.

She pulled a face. "He no longer trusts NCIS. He wants me home."

Tony's stomach did this thing where it plummeted like some sort of super-fast elevator. "What?"

Ziva shrugged and began examining her fingernails. "They are blaming him for murdering the old secretary, Inez Newcomb."

Tony blinked. "She's dead?"

"Apparently."

"Oh. Um. Like, dead . . . Like, she was killed? And they think it was your dad?"

"Apparently."

"And . . . " He trailed off, trying to figure out where he was going with this. Ziva was being unhelpfully casual, idly inspecting her fingernails as she watched television. "And . . . I mean, _was_ it your dad?"

Another shrug. "I do not know. I try to avoid communicating with him as much as possible," she answered loftily.

"Because of the weird switching-languages thingy?"

"Among other things."

Tony sighed. "Are you just, like, _trying_ to be as evasive as possible?" he demanded. "Because it's working."

Ziva smiled like she'd succeeded and put her head on his shoulder. Tony patted her head awkwardly, like she was a dog, and resolved that one of these days he was going to get a straight answer.

But the commercials were over and this was his favorite part of the movie, plus Ziva's hair smelt really good, and Tony had always been a hopeless procrastinator, and so for now he let it slide.

...

Gibbs was dutifully eating pasta under Jenny Shepard's watchful eye when the front door opened, bringing in the musky scent of fall and a blast of cool night air.

"-so I was thinking, since you're Canadian and stuff, you would be an expert on the subject. Plus, do you have anymore of that caramel kettle corn?"

Ziva sighed and kicked off her boots, which slammed against the wall and fell to the foyer floor with a dull thud. "I thought we had moved past the issue of my heritage."

"That's not the point," Tony paused at the threshold of the kitchen to call over his shoulder. "The point is that that kettle corn crap is freaking _delicious_, and you're a faster typist than me, and my project's due tomo- Oh. Hi."

Gibbs glared at the teenager over his whopping bowl of pasta, daring him to say anything. Jenny, however, simply smiled breezily. "Hi, Ziva, Tony. Can I serve you some pasta?"

Tony's brow furrowed. He turned to Ziva, who had come to stand beside him, and hissed, "She knows our names."

"You don't say."

"Sarcasm is not sexy, Ziva," he shot back with an air of wounded self-righteousness.

Gibbs groaned around his mouthful of noodles, but Jenny simply persisted in smiling. "It's the only thing I know how to cook, but it _is_ good. Do you two want some?"

"Do we want some?" Tony whisper-repeated to Ziva questioningly, looking eager.

"We already ate," Ziva said coolly, stepping away from the doorway and taking his hand. "Come on, Tony, we have a three-page paper on Canadian culture to write."

DiNozzo's eyes widened excitedly. "So you're gonna help?"

Ziva, looking disgruntled, nodded and, turning on a heel, marched away. Tony grinned, pumped a fist in the air, and dove into the kitchen just long enough to retrieve a bag of kettle corn from the cabinet before thundering up the stairs.

"They don't like me," Jenny said flatly after DiNozzo's footsteps had quieted, sinking down into the seat opposite Gibbs'.

He shrugged. "Maybe they're just not hungry."

She raised an eyebrow and challenged, "The kettle corn?" When he gave no response, she nodded with something like grim satisfaction. "They don't like me."

She had him there, so Gibbs just shrugged and speared a curly noodle with his fork. "They don't _trust_ you," he said upon swallowing. "There's a difference."

Jenny sighed and commenced painting pictures on the white porcelain of her plate with the pool of her leftover tomato sauce. She looked so pitiful that Gibbs had asked for a second helping of pasta before he even knew he was doing it.

She beamed and reloaded his plate with a heaping, sauce-laden mountain of carbohydrates, then sat down with her chin cradled in her hands and stared him down.

Gibbs was full to the point of bursting, but he mentally sighed and commenced eating under Jenny's watchful gaze.

...

"That was pretty rude," said Tony through a mouthful of freaking _delicious _kettle corn. He was sprawled across Ziva's bed, staring up at her ceiling and listening to the steady rhythm of computer keys, which came to a sudden halt upon his speaking.

"What do you mean?" inquired Ziva coolly, looking up from the laptop perched on her crossed legs.

He waved a hand around to demonstrate, spilling bits of popcorn onto the bed sheets, and swallowed before answering. "Y'know. With Gibbs' girlfriend, the red head. That pasta actually smelled really good."

"We had already eaten. I do not want you to follow in so many Americans' footsteps and become obese," Ziva justified, returning to her typing.

Tony snorted. "Please. I am made of rock hard muscle. A serving or two of pasta is not going to make me another statistic that the health department uses to justify removing all the decent food from the school vending machines. And don't make it sound like Americans are the only fat people . . . Hey, what's the Canadian obesity percentage? That's a fun fact, right? Look that up and put it in the report," he instructed.

"I should make you write this yourself," Ziva sniffed in irritation, smacking away the handful of kettle corn he held out to her and spilling more kernels on the bed. "This is _your_ project."

"This is _your_ homeland," he countered. She growled in irritation, but the sound of clicking keys started up once more. "But, seriously, that was pretty rude," he repeated after a moment. "How come you went totally 'Ice Queen' on girlfriend? You jealous?"

"She is the secretary at our school."

"Huh. You know, I thought she looked familiar . . . But what does that have to do-"

"She replaced Inez Newcomb." Ziva leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. "Who was _killed,_ Tony. Excuse me for being a bit suspicious . . . "

"Oh." He thought about this. "So you think she might be working for the crazies who kidnapped us?"

"Or for my father, yes."

Tony sat up and eyed his non-girlfriend suspiciously. She kept her own eyes fixed determinedly on the computer screen, but something about the way her chin was set made him feel brave enough to scoot over and squeeze her ankle gently. "You're really scared he's going to make you go back to Israel."

She kept her eyes studiously downcast. "Do not be stupid, Tony."

"Shush," he reprimanded. "I'm being a dutiful boyfriend. Stop being difficult."

He winced as soon as the words had left his mouth because _hello, Tony_, that was stupid. Ziva looked up sharply.

"Is that what you are, then?"

"I- Uh-"

Damnit. Damnit, damnit, damnit. He was so _stupid_. Tony's mind raced into over-drive, seeking out a humorous tension diffuser and/or a quick escape route.

The cheesy, charming grin was halfway in place when Ziva flicked his knee. Hard. "Ow!"

"I want a real answer," she said sternly, looking him in the eye and then down at his hand, still resting comfortably on her lower leg. "And stop groping me."

He moved his hand farther up her leg, just to get a reaction. Sure enough, she slapped him, he howled in protest, she said something suitably threatening, and by that time things were back to normal.

At least for now.

**So. I was really tempted to just break out my Porky Pig impression, but I'm pretty sure I used that last chapter, didn't I? Anyway, I want to know where you want me to take this, as well as what you liked and didn't. Favorite couple? Favorite lines/plot? Love to all my readers and reviewers who are so freaking awesome that it makes me want to squeal. **

**TaTa For Now!  
><strong>


	23. Chapter 23

***enthusiasm* Hey, guys! *is promptly shot in the head, Kate-style* So... funny story about me not updating this for months and months, right? Totes hilarious. Funnier story is I had about half of this written anyway and I was just mentally convinced that it sucked and then last weekend I read it over and was like, "oh, hey. I actually like this chapter." **

**The punchline is basically that I'm super, super sorry. But this is the second story I've updated in less than a week, so hopefully the trend will continue and I'll be able to get back into the swing of regular updates. *knocks on wood***

**Also, warning, this is FLUFFEH. And basically the whole first section is for Sophie's benefit because apparently she, among others, isn't convinced that Tony's intentions are entirely honorable and I honestly don't blame y'all :) Rather than have several people who have probably left this story for dead by now (not that I blame them either) go all 'protective mama bear' on me, this was born. Case developements next chapter, I swear!**

**Disclaimer- Waddup**

* * *

><p>Tony hadn't really had very much of anything at all planned for his Sunday afternoon. If he'd had like a handy little day-planner-calendar-thing in his head, in fact, it would have been totally empty, perhaps even with a couple enigmatic question marks slotted in place to emphasize his total cluelessness. He'd thought about hanging out with Ziva, but quickly determined that too be far too dangerous an endeavor, considering how prone he was lately to saying stupid stuff that generally over-complicated everything.<p>

He had finally decided on simply watching a movie filled with action-y stuff like people who wore cool shades and walked away from explosions without peeing their pants, perhaps eating something that was high in fat and low in cost, when the doorbell rang and a pigtailed, accusative hurricane blew into the foyer upon Tony opening the door.

"Anthony Whose Middle Name I Do Not Know DiNozzo!"

Tony stood awkwardly in his foyer, kind of half-noting that he was looking pretty shabby with his sweatpants and messy hair, and wondered what exactly he had done that was offensive or awesome enough to garner him a visit from Abby and why he had then promptly forgotten about it afterwards. He drew a blank.

"Um. Hi, Abby," he ventured finally. "You... know where I live?"

"And don't you forget it," she snapped menacingly. Definitely with malignant intent. Okay, so likely something offensive, not awesome... Unless she was just super jealous of this anonymous awesome thing that he had done… All the same, Tony hedged back a couple feet.

"Oh," he managed finally, "kay. Um, what's up?"

"I am the newly-elected head of the prom committee," Abby informed him imperiously, crossing her arms and swishing her pigtails like flags of dyed-black triumph.

Tony whistled, impressed that she'd beaten out the usual rabid group of over-achievers and cheerleaders. He half-wondered if perhaps there had been hacking or some other form of geeky violence involved. "Really? Congrats!"

"Well. It was by default," she admitted grumpily, eyes narrowing accusingly, "since every girl in the room, and one decidedly gay guy, was arguing about who was president of the Tony DiNozzo fanclub."

Um. Tony blinked rapidly a couple times, unsure where this was going, and finally drawled, "I'm assuming the guy was McGee?"

Abby's face screwed up in a ferocious scowl. "Timothy McGee is not gay," she informed him coolly, tacking a lame, "I hope," on the end.

"Oh." A beat. "So who _is_ the president? Of my fanclub? And did they spell my name right on the banners?"

Abby stamped a foot and set the schmancy chandelier hanging from the domed foyer ceiling quivering indignantly. "Tony, you are not taking this seriously!"

He sputtered, insulted. "How _am_ I supposed to take this seriously? I don't have a _fanclub_, Abby!"

"Tell that to Layne what's-her-face," she countered, furrowed eyebrows promising imminent death and destruction. "She certainly seems to think she heads it."

"Yeah, well, Layne's... got psychological problems," he allowed, "but I don't really get what you're accusing me of here. Other than being grossly popular, obviously."

Abby stamped a foot. "You have a girlfriend!"

"And there's _that_ issue again," he muttered, shifting his weight awkwardly.

"And Ziva's awesome and super-tough, but she's got emotions... probably... and if you hurt her or blow her off like you did with Layne and Savannah and- and the obnoxious brunette with the earlobe-stretching earrings-"

"Gianna," Tony supplied automatically.

"Right. If you treat Ziva like one of those girls, then I am going to lace your food with something _lethal_ and watch as your internal organs slowly and painfully disintegrate and then I will rip out _each_ and _every_ one of your obnoxiously-perfect teeth with a spool of dental floss and then I will _laugh_!"

Tony blinked and opened and closed his mouth several times as he tried to process this elaborate tangle of threats and accusations and sweetly earnest concern. Eventually he decided it was probably safe to close his mouth, so as to protect his 'obnoxiously-perfect teeth' and so they fell into a long and uncomfortable silence.

Finally, he gave in, and answered while keeping his hand firmly in front of his mouth. "Um. I'm not... I'm not going to- _how_ would you do that, exactly?"

Abby's eyes narrowed to cat-like green pinpoints. "Painfully. And _slowly_."

He swallowed and wondered if there was a way to phrase this that wouldn't sound like something out a crappy romantic comedy. There wasn't. So eventually embracing his inner Nicholas Sparks character, he stumbled out:

"Uh. Abs, I- I don't even know if Ziva, like, considers me her boyfriend or whatever, but I promise you I'm not gonna hurt her... not intentionally anyway. 'Cause she's not... She's not _like_ Layne or Gianna or whoever... And she'd kick my butt if I tried anything anyway."

This had sounded far less cheesy and far more articulate in his head, but Abby seemed relatively satisfied by his emotional vomit. She squinty-eyed him for a while, then nodded slowly, and asked if he had any strawberry pop tarts.

She was decidedly less satisfied when it was revealed that, no, he did not have any pop tarts, strawberry or otherwise.

So they went out for churros and ended up buying a really pretty birdhouse from a shifty-looking roadside stand instead.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Honey-bun," Tony said cheerfully, slinging an arm around Ziva's shoulder and setting down his lunch tray with an obnoxious bang, just because.<p>

She smiled sunnily at him as she surreptitiously transferred several of his French fries onto her own plate. "Are we doing the obnoxious nicknames game again, then?"

He snapped his gum. "Don't know what you're talking about, Cotton-Candykins. So what're you doing approximately... one, two... a bunch of days from now?"

Ziva thought about this for a while. "Probably something violent... _sunshine_."

"Good one," he noted, impressed, before continuing, "Well, do you think you'd be inclined to _stop_ being violent for a couple hours and drink suspicious punch in a crowded gym full of obnoxious people and loud music?"

Ziva wrinkled her nose adorably and sipped from her water bottle. "That sounds... far less appetizing than violence."

"And if I add the promise of you being forced to dress up and probably dance, too?"

"If this is your way of asking me to the dance, Tony," Ziva said dryly, "then I'd suggest you either refine your technique or find a more impressionable candidate-"

"Hi, Abby!" Tony interjected enthusiastically, waving, before he had to explain that obviously he didn't _want_ a more impressionable candidate, _duh_. "Hey, look, it's Abby!"

Abby waved back just as energetically, though her enthusiasm seemed a bit less forced, as she took a seat across the table from the squabbling couple. McGee was at her heels, scrutinizing his plate full of unidentifiable meat suspiciously.

"Hi, Tony! Hi, Ziva! What's up?"

"Ziva just agreed to be my prom date!" Tony reported brightly, and refused to stop smiling, even after the Israeli had elbowed him very pointedly in the gut. "Ow."

Abby grinned back at him in approval. "That's _awesome_! I'm still waiting for McGee here to pluck up the nerve and actually ask me, but once he does, us girls should totally go dress shopping together, Ziva!"

McGee promptly choked on his mystery meat, and it took at least two minutes of hacking and coughing, as well as several hearty thumps to the back, courtesy of Abby, for the boy to recover.

During this very dramatic interlude, Tony and Ziva entertained a rapid-fire whispered conversation in which Ziva repeatedly and vehemently maintained that she did _not_ want to go to the dance, did _not_ want to go dress shopping with an over-caffeinated Abby, and did _not_ intend on removing her painfully sharp elbow from his ribcage until he _'uninvited_' her.

Tony mostly just sat there and tried to grin through the pain of an absurdly bony elbow crushing his ribs and likely puncturing his lung. However, by the end of the conversation he had saved up the breath (and worked up the nerve) to sell his case with a simple:

"Well, obviously I'm not going to take another girl while I've got a _girlfriend_, but I guess we don't have to go if you _really_ don't want to."

There was a long silence, punctuated only by McGee's violent hacks and Abby's thumps. Ziva's eyes grew very large indeed for a moment, and she abruptly found it absolutely vital to turn all her attention to inspecting the semi-congealed cheese on her pizza before her.

Finally, she conceded, "Well, I suppose if you really had your heart set on it... _Pumpkin_."

Tony grinned to himself, looped his arms around her shoulders for a brief hug to celebrate their newly official boyfriend-girlfriend status of awesomeness and all, then declared:

"You're the best, Munchkin'!"

Ziva made a face even as she took his hand beneath the table. "Never call me that again."

* * *

><p>Well, if Tim had ever had any doubt as to whether or not Abby returned his less-than-platonic feelings towards her, it had been vanquished by the time he had removed the obstruction of questionable meat from his windpipe.<p>

Tony and Ziva seemed to be engaged in some sort of bro-hug, bickering all the while, so he took advantage of their distraction and turned to Abby with his best, cruelly exaggerated imitation of Tony's fool-proof charming grin.

"So I've been thinking... You wanna go to the home-coming dance with me?"

Abby grinned, then put her hands to her cheeks in faux-surprise. "Why, Timothy McGee," she exclaimed in her best Southern-belle imitation, "I'd be absolutely delighted!"

And that was that.

Tim went back to prodding at his mystery meat in an attempt to ensure it was not, in fact, breathing, as it very much appeared to be. And if a little bit of a smug smile played about his face for the rest of the day, who could call him out on it?

(Other than Tony, of course. Tony called him out on it as soon as he and Ziva had stopped doing inappropriate things with their eyes and turned back to the table. But that was only to be expected.)

* * *

><p>Gibbs just wanted a damn waffle.<p>

Really, that was all he'd wanted.

But of course DiNozzo had been over last night feeling up Ziva under the pretenses of 'practicing' for their victory dance when they 'inevitably' won their titles as prom king and queen, and then he'd proclaimed that dancing made him hungry and attempted to make Ziva fulfill her traditional female role by cooking for him.

Ziva, the smart girl, had just poked at his collarbone with a pinky finger and informed him that she knew all the pressure points of the human body, could incapacitate him in about four seconds flat, and that there was Aunt Jemima's syrup in the cupboard.

Tony had then eaten the last of the Eggo waffles _and _sopped it all up with just about every drop of sticky-sweet syrup in the bottle, damn him, which left Gibbs without any microwaveable breakfast at hand.

Ziva had a waffle iron in the cupboard. He didn't know why. He was kind of afraid to ask, so he'd just washed it carefully and then set about attempting to make actual, home-made waffles.

Gibbs could work a gun, diffuse a bomb, build a boat from scratch, but work the stupid waffle iron he could not. And then Ziva had gotten involved and somehow it had turned from breakfast to awkward heart-to-heart conversations about things that neither of them was actually comfortable talking about.

"So you… _like _this DiNozzo kid?"

She shrugged and then hissed a curse as she burnt her fingers on the edge of the stupidly complicated waffle iron. "He is more tolerable than I had first imagined," she conceded, and then turned the tables in true spawn-of-politician fashion. "What about you?"

"He ate my waffles. I might shoot him," said Gibbs in the utmost, breakfast-deprived seriousness.

"The- the thing - the button thing - why is it blinking?"

Gibbs studied the tiny flashing light suspiciously. "It's not a bomb," he decided after a long minute of scrupulous inspection.

"Of course it is not a bomb. I swept every gadget in this house for explosives when I first moved in, and twice since then," she retorted haughtily. All the same, Ziva visibly deflated and began to sift through the waffle iron box as she brought the subject back to her previous question. "I meant, do you like this Jenny person?"

"Oh."

Gibbs considered as Ziva emerged from the box with an alarmingly thick instruction manual and began to sift through it, tucking her curls behind her ears and consequently getting batter in her hair.

"She makes good pasta," he said at last.

She nodded, conceding this, and flipped a couple more pages. "That is true… It says here that when the green light flashes, the iron is hot enough to begin cooking."

Gibbs studied the gadget. "The light is red."

"It does not say anything about a red light."

"Keep reading."

"I am."

Silence. The waffle iron was sizzling very loudly.

"Green usually means go, yes?" said Ziva absently. "So perhaps red means that the waffle is done?"

"What do the directions say?" Gibbs countered, unconvinced.

"Just check the waffle while I keep reading," she instructed sharply, flipping a page. "So you do not think Jenny has anything to do with the ongoing investigation about the- bombing?"

Gibbs prodded hesitantly at the handle of the iron, and then decided to sacrifice his manly pride and don some oven mitts, just to be safe. As she shuffled through the kitchen cabinets, finding a wide variety of weapons and not a single oven mitt, he answered:

"Doesn't look that way."

"But she was working for my father?"

"Looks that way." He finally settled for wrapping a dish towel around his hand, and opened the gadget with the air of one gingerly unmasking a bomb. The resulting gush of steam and heat certainly added realism to the scene.

Through the smoke, he could see Ziva frown. "I do not like that he has people following me."

The smoke cleared, revealing something resembling piping hot petrified wood. Without a word, Gibbs pried it up from the pan. Ziva wordlessly handed him the bowl of batter and he slowly refilled the tray.

"Doesn't mean that he doesn't trust you. Just means that he's concerned," he said, concentrating on not spilling any more of the thick Bisquick onto the stained countertop.

"The red light means that the waffle pan is overheated and needs to be unplugged before being refilled," reported Ziva. Then, more quietly, "I somehow doubt that."

Gibbs looked at the bubbles already forming on the surface of the batter and finally moved to pull the plug roughly from its socket. "Want to hit IHOP?"

Ziva smiled and dropped the instruction manual eagerly.

* * *

><p><strong>This whole prom plotline is so cliched that it, like, hurts my face. But who can resist putting Abby and Ziva into pretty dresses and throwing them all into a swarm of semi-drunken high schoolers trying to dance to Gangnam Style, amirite? I have to do something about that pesky plot, too, don't I? :p<strong>

**Anyway, if there's anyone still reading, please do leave me a review letting me know how you feel. You're allowed to yell at me :) Also, TELL ME ALL ABOUT YOUR SEASON 10 FEELZ! Because mine are ready to explode and I need people to vent to who won't just tell me to use my inside voice and go to my room/the principal until I can control myself.**

**Long story short, review and tell me things. Luffle you all. Sorry for being lazy :P **


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